Smile Like A Paper Cut
by baillierj
Summary: Many serial killers are capable of leading outwardly normal lives, hiding in plain sight as husbands, wives, scout leaders, doctors, policemen, soldiers and employers. What if Sherlock is one of them? And what if John discovers his secret?
1. Linkage

Before you venture any further, there needs to be a word of warning. Contained within these pages is a dark journey into the human psyche, inspired and influenced by real-life individuals who have done unspeakable things to other human beings. Some very morally ambiguous philosophical concepts are explored, and scenes of extremely violent death are described. That being said, I hope this gives you food for thought as well as some heart-rending moments.

The story will be divided into six larger parts. When the part changes, the point-of-view character changes.

The parts are as follows:

PART ONE: JULIAN

PART TWO: JOHN

PART THREE: JULIAN

PART FOUR: JOHN

PART FIVE: JULIAN

PART SIX: SHERLOCK

Timeline: during season 2.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

 **PART ONE: JULIAN**

 **Chapter 1: Linkage**

"But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us."

\- from "Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk" by Sir Thomas Browne

"DI Lestrade?" I inquire while peering into the man's office. He raises his head from the stack of papers he's holding. The DI has a bit of a five-o-clock shadow, framed by the bags under his eyes. Standard Metropolitan police look of a depressed workaholic divorcee.

He doesn't smile but looks amicable enough that I dare enter his cluttered office.

"Not really, but I've been meaning to have a word with you anyway. Come in, close the door," Lestrade says as he leans back in his chair, looking pained as though he's got a crick in his neck. He probably does.

I sit down in the chair placed in front of his desk without being invited to do so. I only realize this afterwards, having gotten used to the less hierarchical atmosphere in the States during the two years I've just spent there.

"How are you settling in?", Lestrade inquires, sounding like he genuinely cares about the answer. I decide I like him. For now. His team seems to think he's a good boss.

"Fine," I reply hastily, wanting to move on to what I actually came here to tell him.

I realize I probably first need to let him go through whatever issue he's been planning to discuss with me.

"Good, good. Look, I know that starting from the bottom rung is tough and that you want to get into homicide but Missing Persons is actually quite a decent first placement-"

"I know it is."

He looks indignant. "As I was saying, it's a very decent placement for someone just starting out. Many of their cases move onto SCIT eventually. I think that with some patience, some hard work and holding onto that bloody irritating enthusiasm of yours will definitely get you into the Murder Investigations Team roster eventually."

I raise my brow. It sounds like there's a 'but' in there somewhere.

"But," Lestrade continues and I inhale sharply, "Pulling ridiculous publicity stunts to get career leverage is not the way to go about it."

I swallow and meet his gaze. "I didn't pull a 'publicity stunt'."

Lestrade sighs. "I know it was you who gave the press that anonymous hint that those muggings-slash-killings could be related. I get it, you want to make a show of what you learned in that goodwill exchange."

"The FBI does not do goodwill exchanges. I am a double citizen, which allowed me to do an International Criminal Investigation Analysis Fellowship first, and then go through their entire two-year Behavioral Sciences programme."

Lestrade looks if not impressed, then at least discouraged enough not to continue scolding me. "All right. I still need to remind you that inciting the press about nonexistant serial killers is not going to help us catch anyone."

I disagree. It's definitely going to help us catch someone, if the link is there. "Proper linkage analysis could have sunk Dennis Rader a lot earlier," I point out.

The DI peers into an empty plastic coffee cup and drops it into the bin under his desk. "You'd probably say that about Jack The Ripper, too."

I raise a brow. "The linkage wasn't the problem with Jack. Lack of forensics back in the day probably was the big issue."

Lestrade cocks his head in what seems like partial agreement. "I'm willing to let this slide, assuming that you'll toe the line in the future. I know media is all the hoohaa in the States where they use all sorts of neat little press tricks to lure in serial killers, but trust me, that isn't going to fly here. You must have some experience yourself of media frenzy from Birmingham."

I worked as a sergeant in the violent crimes unit of the Birmingham police force for several years. I got recruited to the Met after a couple of high-profile cases that left me yearning for more training and bigger challenges. The Met was looking to send someone to the States, and with my Eagle-adorned passport I was deemed a good fit.

It was a challenge to leave before having even properly settled into New Scotland Yard. During the years I was away I'd been long forgotten, and when I returned there wasn't much enthusiasm for what I was bringing back with me in terms of new ideas and knowledge. Even my instructors at Quantico had made some gentle jibes at the conservative nature of the English bobby, which had irritated me back then. Nowadays it all seemed to ring annoyingly true.

"Anyway. What was it that you wanted to talk about, Alex?" he asks.

"Julian," I correct, and the DI looks genuinely embarrassed.

I've been told by several former Birmingham colleagues that my first name is not a proper cop's name. It's a poet's name, a violinist's name or a teacher's name, but not a cop's name. They didn't like that someone with a gentle name like that could solve their cases for them, utilizing modern ideas instead of old-fashioned legwork and oafish gruffness. Thank fuck I got out of there.

I dig out a map of London from my pocket and carefully spread it onto Lestrade's desk. He moves a couple of piles of papers on top of a filing cabinet to make some space.

He then seems to take in the dots and crosses I've drawn on the map with coloured felt-tip pens. "What's this then?" He asks.

I lean my palms on his desk. "I know you don't believe me on the muggings being connected. Fair enough. I just wanted to show you something, something I realized after trying to organize some cold case files."

"You've marked down most of the more peripheral boroughs," he remarks and I nod, hoping to look encouraging but not annoyingly enthusiastic.

DI Lestrade is the old fox of the department and the one I really need on my side if I want to get this thing off the ground. If Lestrade dismisses me as some overeager beginner I'm not going to get anywhere.

"These dots mark missing person reports of males between twenty to thirty five years of age between 1995 and 2010. There's at least thirteen of them. As you see they cluster on the outer areas of greater London. I've only included reports that were filed by close relatives and where the male did not belong to a vulnerable victim group such as drug user, prostitute or holder of a substantial criminal record. These are- were ordinary people, mostly middle class to upper class, healthy and in their prime, and with no reason to disappear."

"Go on."

"The crosses mark similar cases from 2005 onwards," I explain, and then let Lestrade mull it over.

He raises his head to look at me, clearly intrigued. "They're closer to midtown."

"There are eight cases from that time period, nearly all of them living within an hour's journey from Central London by car or Tube. Coincidence?"

"Interesting, but not exactly grounds for a task force -based investigation. These are missing persons. Anything could have happened to them. They could be dead, alive, fine or not fine - we don't even have a class of crime to assign them. And it's not exactly criminal to disappear - likely some of them have wanted to leave their old lives behind."

"They stop. The disappearances stop," I point out.

"When?"

"Four months before the first of these lethal muggings of thirtysomething, fit males in upscale suburbs happened."

"You think it's the same person who could be responsible for the disappearances? But why would they have started leaving their victims in plain sight? And if those missing persons were victims of muggings, too, then why haven't we been able to find any of their remains, if there are so many of them? Your run-of-the-mill street robber doesn't usually transport bodies elsewhere."

"That's exactly what I've been wondering-" I nod and try to explain further, but Lestrade cuts in.

"The murder weapons in the muggings vary, which speaks against a single suspect," he says. The most recent one had been nearly decapitated by the deep cuts across his throat, done with some sort of a knife. The first of the three had been stabbed neatly in the heart, the blade twisted around in a fan-like-motion that will have required a lot of manual dexterity and strenght since the killer would have had to practically spread a couple of ribs to achieve that sort of a carnage. The second victim's femoral artery had been slashed with what the pathologist thinks had been a scalpel of something similar.

"Not exactly." I want to tell Lestrade that modus operandi can change and that signatures are more stable than the choice of a murder weapon, but that would sound like lecturing and I'm sure he's actually already familiar with these ideas. "They could have just fancied a change, really. Or maybe they used what they had access to. Some killers even deliberately change their MO to throw police off track."

Lestrade's faint smile is lopsided and thoughtful.

"What I was trying to say before is what if the robbery part of it is a ruse, a smokescreen?" I suggest.

"What do you mean?"

"They were all killed with bladed weapons. The one that was practically impaled by some sort of a knife that had been sunk beyond the heart, nearly bisecting his spine. Way more force than is necessary for robbery. Overkill. The second one was missing an ear. The case investigators assumed it had been cut off in the heat of the defensive battle but where is it?"

"Still, to try and link them with a bunch of missing persons with no other evidence than circumstancial stuff about timing doesn't seem warranted. Besides, Sherlock hasn't said a word about a posibbility that the muggings are connected.

There's that name again, a name I've often heard mentioned in the Met after my return.

Sherlock Holmes.

A bit of a mythical figure, this freelance crime investigator DI Lestrade has unscrupulously made advantage of to beautify the unit statistics every time a case has his team baffled.

I haven't met Holmes, but I've seen his picture in some newspaper clippings. Frankly, it's a little offensive how they would consult outsiders when there's a lot of know-how inside the Met still largely untapped. There are good, young cops stuck in pointless cold case hell instead of being employed in higher-profile cases and Lestrade keeps parading an amateur around.

Young cops like me. Not that I'm bitter or anything. I'm not naive enough to assume they'd let me headline a Murder Investigation team fresh out of the provinces.

I have to admit I'm curious about this Holmes guy. If he's as good as they say, why is he not a proper cop, then? Why freelance? Some of the more unsavoury stories paint a picture of a man with a lack of social skills and more than a bit of a mean streak. Maybe he's too impulsive. Or has a criminal record. Or maybe he doesn't like authority figures all that much. These are all issues that would come up in an aptitude test.

"You've asked him about the muggings?" I enquire Lestrade.

"Yeah, we had him with us at the last scene. Seemed to think there wasn't anything special to it. He dismisses cases he judges to be boring."

"He thinks homicide is boring?" I ask, baffled.

"Some of it, yeah."

Lestrade's phone rings before he can explain further.

I listen quietly while he has a short conversation with some. Judging by his tone, one of our superiors is at the other end of the line. After the call ends, Lestrade types off a quick text. Then he slides the phone back into his pocket, yawning even though it's just only five in the afternoon. I wonder if he's an insomniac.

Lestrade regards me with an indecisive look. He then stands up, grabs his coat and smiles at me. "You got anything on?" he asks.

I shake my head. My unit director is at a meeting the rest of the day and what I have on my desk can wait. Cold cases from years past. They probably won't spoil if they wait for a few hours longer.

"If you want to meet Sherlock Holmes, grab your coat and meet me downstairs. A group of hunters have discovered a dozen or so corpses in a well in the Asterley Manor woodlands. Sure looks like the work of a serial killer. These are the sorts of things Sherlock excels at."


	2. The well

**PART ONE: JULIAN**

 **Chapter 2: The well**

We head out of town in Lestrade's car. His second-in-command, DS Sally Donovan, rides with us. She doesn't fight me for the shotgun seat.

I've only met her a couple of times. She seems focused on work, not very friendly. Her confidence is of the more quiet kind. Clearly she feels she has secured her position well enough not to care about a new face barging into their case. She doesn't ask my name or why I'm present. Perhaps she already knows these things.

She carries the weary air of a murder cop but doesn't seem burned out.

Lestrade's phone pings with a text message which I manage to spot a glimpse of when the DI is forced to hold both his phone and use the gear shift with his left hand momentarily.

IN THE CAB, 32 MINUTES. SH, the reply from Sherlock Holmes reads.

"What do we know about this place?" Lestrade asks, glancing at Donovan in the backseat.

"Private owned manor. The grounds are mostly remote woodlands, not open to the public. A group of fox hunters were lead to the well by their dogs. The well was boarded up with stones, and approximately 20 well-deserved bodies have been found down there. No recent tire tracks or any other kinds of track marks nearby. There's been flooding recently so we can't be sure if anyone's been around, though. Forensics is already there."

"Who has access to the grounds?" I ask.

"The family who owns it. There are extensive grounds which aren't open to the public. It's not exactly barred and bolted so people could get in, but there's nothing much there that anyone would want to go and see, really. Pretty overgrown is what the forensic techs say. Not even the family has been using the grounds much until a year ago when they began to use it for foxhunting," Donovan tells me. "The old owner died and his son wanted to take up a family tradition."

I hum in aknowledgement. Donovan has done her homework.

"Have you called him, then?" Donovan inquires Lestrade with an apprehensive but somewhat judgmental tone. Apparently she doesn't even need to say the name for Lestrade to catch on who she's talking about. "We can sometimes solve these on our own, you know. At least we used to," Donovan says in a disapproving tone.

"You know as well as I do that we're snowed under at the moment, and the media will ask about him anyway, if we don't solve this in less than a day. Which we won't. Nobody probably could. Bloody press."

"Is Holmes as good as they say?" I ask and witness Donovan pursing her lips in the backseat.

"Yes," says Lestrade. Donovan doesn't open her mouth to contradict, but clearly she isn't as keen on the subject as the DI.

"Why isn't he employed in the force, then? I'd guess that pay for this sort of on-off consultant work is even worse than our wages."

Donovan laughs. It's more of a morbid bark, really, and it makes me wonder what the woman sounds like when laughing because she's actually happy and not just mockingly sarcastic. "As though he could ever pass the psych evals."

Lestrade sighs and overtakes a lorry. "We don't pay him," he remarks dryly.

I frown. "Excuse me?"

"It's more of a hobby than a job for him, helping us out. He has other, private eye -type cases that probably rake in some dough. And his GP flatmate probably picks up the odd bill or two. His brother is some sort of a cabinet head and probably loaded."

I also think that homicide is an interesting line of policework, but I wouldn't exactly do this without getting a regular paycheck. Who would? "Guy's got no day job, then?"

Lestrade laughs. "I don't think he's ever had one, really. I'd have a hard time imagining him at an office Christmas party. I think he has at least a partial chemistry degree from some posh university. "

I decide to bite into what Donovan has remarked earlier about psych evals. "What's he really like, then?"

"He describes himself as a sociopath. You're not going to like him, that's for sure. Nobody does," Donovan says, "Except for Greg here who likes hopeless cases, and that flatmate, friend, whatever he is or they are. Dr Watson seems like a decent bloke, I've no bloody idea what he thinks he's doing with Holmes. Maybe it's a physical thing. I sure as hell wouldn't kick Holmes out of bed if he just kept his bloody mouth shut."

Lestrade gives her a warning look.

"We just gotta keep him away from any live victims or family members," Lestrade admits.

"Isn't it be a bit of a PR problem, having a civilian do parts of our job?" I venture to ask. I know that the press seems to be quite fond of Holmes, but surely it doesn't reflect well on the NSY that we need a consultant.

"It was, at first. He seemed to get a kick out of humiliating us in front of the press in order to blackmail us into letting him work cases. Tthe press gave us a bollocking for being so clueless that we'd need amateurs. Then the whole super sleuth thing with the hat sort of took off, he got some fans, and now the public loves him and assumes he's on it everytime we get a major case. It was that blog of Dr Watson's that started the whole phenomenon."

"Vicious circle, if you ask me." That was Donovan, arms crossed, staring out into the traffic which is getting lighter now that we've left central London behind.

I find myself increasingly curious about Holmes, even though I should probably be more focused by the crime scene we're approaching.

I can't resist digging out my phone and googling the name Sherlock Holmes. I find both his and John Watson's websites, and decide to read a bit of the man's own blog, 'The Science of Deduction'.

To put it mildly, his interests are strange. More than a bit OCD. And his answers to visitor comments tell a similar tale to what DS Donovan has been conveying - not a pleasant chap. He employs none of the usual flat niceties that people use when writing messages to unknown individuals online. Strong sense of superiority and deep disregard for the abilities of others. Describes himself as a sociopath - who the hell even does that?

No job, kind of highly educated. Highly intelligent. Unpleasant. Has one friend who he lives with.

We drive through a set of ornate iron gates onto the vast grounds of Asterley Manor. We don't drive up to the house looming at the end of a winding, oak-lined road but instead turn to a narrow path through the woodlands.

I briefly question whether Lestrade's banged-up sedan can negotiate the muddy and rocky route.

Lucky for us, it does absolutely fine. We pull up next to a small opening in the forest, not even big enough to be a proper meadow. Lestrade has a hard time parking because the place is already crowded with dogs, horses, people and cars. There are several patrol cars, a black Lexus I know belongs to one of our higher-ups and a couple of crime technician vans parked nearby already.

We exit the car, wrap our coats tighter around us in the icy wind that's trying to knock us about, and walk into the chaotic scene.

A group of ten or so fox hunters clad in traditional red riding jackets are holding onto the reins of their horses while trying to control the unruly pack of dogs accompanying them. Several of the riders are answering questions posed by four NSY officers.

The dogs are barking frantically, lending an urgency to the atmosphere. I admire the manner in which their owners manage to keep them away from the main attraction - a well at the edge of the forest about twenty metres away from us.

The well is clearly old - probably centuries older than the manor itself. Made of crudely cut square grey stones, it only reaches about a metre above ground level. A wooden cover that has probably fit inside the upper part of the well has been removed and propped up against a nearby tree. A ladder has been lowered down to the well.

The crime scene technician climbing up from the well isn't wearing rubber wading trousers, so the well must be dry.

Instead of water the well is filled with something much more ghastly.

White plastic sheets have been placed on the high grass in front of it, and ten or so bodies have already been hauled out and placed onto the sheets, more following by the minute.

The corpses are ashen grey and covered with a whitish waxy substance. They look brittle. Limbs are tearing off when the bodies are moved from the plastic gurney used in lifting them out of the well onto the larger white plastic sheets. I'm reminded of Egyptian mummies.

There isn't much of a smell. I'm used to all manner of human remains and have outgrown my squeamishness about smells and sights, but something about these bodies makes me shudder. They have clearly been here for a long time.

None of their loved ones know where they are.

This almost makes me more angry than the fact that they are dead. I have been told by family members of missing persons that not knowing can be somehow even worse than knowing someone has experienced a violent death.

I can't be sure until they're properly identified, but many of these corpses look like young men. Some have gaping holes in their torsos but it's hard to tell if this has been deliberate on the part of the perpetrator, or the work of animals.

A sudden quiet growl echoes from the well. A lab technician climbs up, cradling a bleeding hand. There's a call for a net or a plastic bag, and after a few minutes a black, bulging, moving, scuttling body bag is hauled out of the well and then opened and upended. A disgruntled-looking badger crawls out and darts into the safety of some nearby bushes. A gaggle of dogs separates from the hunters and chases it into the forest.

"You should have killed it. It might have some evidence in its intestines," a technician points out.

This entices a hollow laugh from one of his colleagues, a red-haired woman. "It crawled in through some hole in the back, there's a tunnel there. We saw it coming so I don't think it managed to bite off anything just yet."

Lestrade rolls his eyes.

"I didn't know badgers ate those sorts of things," I point out.

Lestrade peers into the well. "My grandma used to say that badgers will eat anything."

We observe the scene quietly for awhile.

The body count rises, the dogs howl and the horses are getting restless. Eventually the sergeants interviewing the hunting group decide they've gathered enough data for now, and let the group leave the scene. The hunters disappear down a small path towards the manor in a disorganized line.

After we can no longer hear the dogs' errant barks, Donovan nods back towards the cars. "Holmes is here."


	3. Scare tactics

**PART ONE: JULIAN**

 **Chapter 3: Scare tactics**

A cab is parked at the end of the road. A man with a sturdy build and sandy blond hair is leaning onto the hood of the car, counting bills and passing them to the cab driver through the open shotgun seat window. Another man, who I have no trouble recognizing as Sherlock Holmes, has already made his way to the edge of the less forested area we're standing in. He's striding towards us.

He's tall with a handsome mop of blackish, curly hair. His facial features are intricate and sharp, and the expression he wears is that of determined, cold calculation. Most people - even many a policeperson - would be hesitant, upset or nervous about entering such a gruesome scene, but this man is acting as though this is all normal, business as usual.

He has a blue, clearly rather expensive scarf tied around his neck and his coat commands quite a presence. His shoes are leather, not something one would wear to a muddy forest. They will probably be ruined, but Holmes doesn't seem to care. Clearly this man knows how to dress. It all screams public school to me.

Holmes walks straight up to Lestrade, ignoring me and Donovan. "Anderson here?"

"On leave," Lestrade replies and a controlled smile that isn't exactly delighted but merely satisfied crosses Sherlock Holmes' face.

Holmes turns to look at the blonde man he'd abandoned by the car who is now slowly, somewhat reluctantly, making his way towards us. Holmes frowns momentarily and bites his lip in a troubled manner. Then he shakes himself out of this reverie and walks to the bodies. He leans down to peer at them.

Lestrade starts discussing strategy with Donovan while I stand back and watch Holmes. I don't even notice that Holmes' companion, Dr John Watson, has joined our group until Lestrade greets him.

I wonder why he hasn't joined Holmes by the corpses - surely as a doctor he'd be most useful in this scenario when employing his medical skills?

The office tales about Holmes haven't given Watson a very prominent role in solving our cases. Maybe Watson just sort of hangs around in the periphery? Clearly this is Holmes' thing and perhaps Watson's function is to keep him some company. Still, why would the doctor bother to follow the man to crime scenes, where there's plenty of things to keep Holmes occupied?

I know Watson used to be a soldier. A war surgeon. Holmes does not say much about him on his website, but the little he does, is quite appreciative in a backhanded sort of way. Holmes doesn't seem to think many people are worthy enough to warrant his attention and even fewer are deserving of his praise. Clearly John Watson is a special case.

This theory is reinforced by the way in which Holmes keeps stealing glances at the man over his shoulder as though making sure the Watson isn't making himself scarce. Holmes is watching him as though trying to nervously gauge his reactions. Why?

Dr Watson has stuck his hands into his pockets and is breathing a bit heavily. He isn't looking at the bodies much, even though that's where everybody's elses focus is. We humans are usually so unsettled by witnessing evidence of our own mortality, that we can't peel our eyes off the dead. Many doctors are quite seasoned in such matters. Something in Dr Watson's demeanour just doesn't make sense.

I realize he is disturbed by the scene, more than I'd assume him to be. Maybe he's got some acute issue in his life that make him more sensitive than usual. A death in the family, perhaps? Maybe that's why Holmes is keeping an eye on him.

I cough into my gloved fist and Dr Watson turns to face me. "I wonder how long the victims have been out here," I say.

Watson looks thoughtful. "Who knows. Usually people decompose quite quickly outside."

I walk over to the bodies. Dr Watson lingers behind.

Squeamish, clearly.

Sherlock Holmes is leaning his right knee onto the clean edge of one of the white plastic sheets, using a wooden spatula given to him by a lab tech to scrape off a bit of the waxy substance covering the cheek of one body. Its facial features have contorted and drawn in, creating a look not unlike a statue. It's mouth is open and it seems to be missing its tongue.

"Adipocere," Holmes tells me without looking up as though this is something that ought to be obvious to everybody.

I know what adipocere is. I did go through basic forensic medicine training as part of my Quantico education.

"Humid but anaerobic environment. Makes timing of death challenging and unpredictable," I reply and he raises his gaze while standing up. He then sticks the spatula into a small plastic bag and with precise movements closes its ziplock.

"Where's the sample going? That's's not an official evidence bag," I point out.

"I'm sure there will be plenty enough for Anderson and his fellow neanderthals," Holmes replies sharply and sticks the bag into his pocket. I strongly suspect it's not going into the offical inventory lists.

"And you are?" Holmes inquires, his gaze sharpening and roving all across me from my hair to my shoes.

"Julian Barrisi, NSY Homicide and Serious crimes division." I leave out the fact that I'm in the missing persons task force and not exactly sanctioned to be here, unless taking into account Lestrade's unofficial invitation.

He straightens his spine and a sort of a challenge flashes in his eyes. It makes me uneasy.

"Italian name, Brummie accent with a hint of recent American influences. University educated. Parent's social stature above working class. Single, living in a second-floor apartment. Career-oriented. Left-handed."

John Watson has stepped closer to listen. Holmes' eyes flash quickly to him and back. Watson looks mildly amused, as though remembering something pleasant.

"He does that," Watson tells me, sounding like he's making me privy to a pleasant secret.

Does what?

'Deduces' you? That is what Holmes calls his method, isn't? I've heard tales of this in the NSY rumour mill. The bit about Donovan supposedly scrubbing the floors of a forensic technician seems to be a fan favourite at the moment.

Holmes asserts his superiority by revealing things about people that nobody has told him?

Knowledge is power. If Holmes can read someone's sexual preferences in the way you twist the door handle, he's got the upper hand on everybody. Make a wrong move and he'll splay your secrets wide open.

"You have conflicted feelings about your heritage. You make use of your half-American background but it's likely that your surname would make you... an outsider in certain circles," Holmes tells me in a disinterested tone.

It's all a power play, designed to unnerve me.

John Watson seems to enjoy it. At least for a moment, until Watson glances at the bodies behind us and his smile turns sour.

DI Lestrade joins the three of us, having walked around the eighteen bodies now on display. A technician walks up to us to inform Lestrade that there are no more corpses to be found down in the well. As much as I tried to keep my cool during Holmes' unnerving one-sided interrogation, I'm grateful for this distraction.

Lestrade turns to Sherlock, looking hopeful. Watson's gaze roves across the forest behind us. He looks distracted.

Holmes, however, seems to have forgotten to worry about Watson. At the moment he has the look of a predator who's spotted easy prey. Maybe deducing me served as a nice wrm-up exercise for the real deal.

Holmes draws in a breath, as though preparing for something.

"What do you make of this, then?" Lestrade asks and a trimumphant glint flashes in Holmes' eyes. He removes his disposable gloves, balls them up and without looking in my direction, passes them onto me as though I'm a valet. He then digs out a pair of thin, calf-skin gloves that likely cost the equivalent of my monthly pay and puts them on. I catch a glimpse of thin, pale fingers.

"Likely a team of two," Holmes says, "It would requires considerable effort to haul a body across the opening and drop it down the well."

"A very fit singular perpetrator could do it," I offer but get ignored, at least by Holmes.

"Victims present a variety of racial features. Likely a multiracial team of offenders," Holmes states in a manner that invites no counterarguments.

"Recent serial killer demographical research doesn't support that," I quip and this time I've earned an eyeroll from Holmes. That doesn't discourage me from continuing. "It's been proven that although killers usually prefer to select victims within their own racial group, many easily cross over to other groups if opportunity favours selecting other kinds of victims."

"Victims' clothes have decayed but what remains suggests that these are medium-risk victims. Blue collar workers, perhaps even academics. I'd say in terms of a motive we're looking for a member of the lower classess with a visionary-type vengeance towards certain socioeconomic groups," Holmes rattles on.

"Or someone who can move among many types of people and environments inconspicuously or is arrogant enough to select higher-risk victims who will be sought for quickly. We don't know where these people were abducted from, whether those were high-risk situations and how much planning went into it. At the moment I would place my bet on a highly confident, arrogant, experienced offender," I tell Lestrade, who looks mildly interested. I base this on the fact that I have a high suspicion that some of my missing persons might be on those white plastic sheets.

I've been told that it's not a good idea in the sense of self-preservation to vex Sherlock Holmes. A slight smile plays on Lestrade's mouth. Maybe he's amused at someone being stupid enough to challenge the consulting detective.

Holmes coughs somewhat passive-aggressively and Lestrade's attention returns to him. Holmes' ideas probaby still interest Lestrade more than mine. "If I wasn't being interrupted constantly-," Holmes says and pointedly glares at me.

I attempt to appear oblivious to this scolding.

Holmes continues. "-I would have added that there must indeed be a certain arrogance to this person, since he would see those traditionally thought of as belonging into the higher echelons of society as inferior to himself."

"Or perhaps he sees all of humanity, apart from himself, as inferior," I say quietly.

Suddenly Holmes seems to notice that Dr Watson has wandered back towards where the cars are parked. "Excuse me," Holmes says and strides off in the same direction.

I and Lestrade remain behind. He lights a cigarette. I heard he's been trying to quit. I've also heard that Watson got Holmes to quit smoking. I wonder how on Earth the man had winged that. Holmes doesn't come across as easily influenced by the demands of others.

"Visionary," he repeats. "Do you think this guy could have a political motive?" he asks me.

"Not all visionary-type killers have a political message. Some of them operate on a more personal level. It all depends on who these victims are. Even if some of them represent upper middle and upper class, not all of them necessarily do. What Holmes was saying was based on limited data and some of it sounded like old and unproven serial killer lore," I dare muse out loud.

To my surprise, Lestrade doesn't chide me for putting down their golden boy. "He seems a bit distracted," Lestrade says, nodding towards a nearby copse.

Holmes has joined Watson there near the treeline. They seem to be having a heated discussion. Even from a distance I can see Watson's raised hand shaking a bit. Holmes grabs it as though trying to hide the distress Dr Watson is clearly in. If I use my imagination I can lip-read Holmes repeating 'not here' to Watson while stealing covert glances at us every once in awhile. Eventually Holmes notices me staring and flashes a vile, clownish grin, waving his hand at me in a mocking greeting.

I turn slightly, trying to give out the impression that I'm conversing with Lestrade while still maintaining a line of sight to the two men.

What I've hard so far from Holmes in terms of the case consists of conjecture, guesswork, old wives' serial killer tales and theories based on just a couple of bodies out of this much larger morbid collection. Either the man's reputation is based on vapours, which would be strange considering the number of prominent cases he has solved, or Holmes is off his game today for some reason. Still, I wouldn't go so far as to claim he's deliberately trying to obfuscate by getting some things right and some things wrong.

Dr Watson's chest is heaving as he's having a staring match with the detective. The word 'no' traverses the doctor's lips several times in a display of almost shocked denial. Holmes seems to be trying to stare him into the ground, still retaining his hold on the man's wrist. Finally, Watson raises his arms, pulling himself away from Holmes' grasp, straightening his posture and looking somewhat more composed.

Watson hangs back near the impromptu parking area while Holmes returns to us. "I'll need to know everything that forensics finds out soon as possible. And I will have to review the bodies with Molly Hooper."

Lestrade nods. It irritates me that the DI is practically taking orders from a civilian. Who exactly is running this investigation?

I glance back towards the treeline. Dr Watson has disappeared from view.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

 **Notes:**

Dennis Rader, a.k.a. BTK (Bind-Torture-Kill), an American serial killer with a career spanning about twenty years and ten victims. Married for 34 years. Scout leader and elected president of his church council.

SCIT = Specialist Casework Investigations Team; a team of experienced Metropolitan Police detectives, whose duty it is to progress new lines of enquiry, identified through the Specialist Crime Review Group's review of unsolved cases.

Media and serial offenders: law enforcement agencies do indeed make use of the media in catching serial killers. They might, for example, release false and insulting information about a suspect which might entice an egotistic offender to start communicating with the police.

Quantico = refers to the FBI training academy in Virginia

Anaerobic = anaerobic bacteria live and even thrive in environments where no air is available, such as the plugged-up well here


	4. Ruin

**PART TWO: JOHN**

 **Chapter 4: Ruin**

TWO WEEKS EARLIER

Since living with Sherlock Holmes isn't exactly a peaceful endeavour, John relishes every chance he gets to have a quiet night in. A quiet night in, like any normal Englishman in their late thirties might occasionally indulge in.

John sits in his usual armchair, newspaper in hand. Sherlock is out of the apartment, having disappeared hours earlier after declining tea and announcing that he was going out to do some research.

John has had a Tesco ready-meal after sunset and has opted to have the television turned on and curtains shut to instill a feeling of homeliness in the flat. Without Sherlock's presence things are sorely quiet.

John is not worried about Sherlock hitting the streets of London after sunset on a Saturday. The man can take care of himself, and not all of his 'research' entails chasing down axe murderers down darkened alleyways. On occasion Sherlock even goes to the library.

At least that's what he claims to do. Maybe he just needs to get out of the flat lest he go stir-crazy.

John does know better than to get his hopes up about Sherlock's restless energy ever winding down. The man's level of restlessness seems to fluctuate wildly, and it's not always the amount of interesting casework that dictates whether the man is practically trying to tear down the walls. John is certain there are factors at play which have yet eluded him.

Unlike Mycroft, John would get no satisfaction from constantly monitoring the whereabouts of the younger Holmes brother. To John it seems like Mycroft may have begun to loosen his reins during the past year that John and Sherlock have been living together.

Living together. Flatmate. Friend. No single word precisely conveys all the nuances of their duet, and John has given up trying to find one that could.

Piercing, multicoloured irises homing in on John, lids narrowed. The world shrinking down to just the two of them. Sherlock looking at him as though he's the most fascinating thing in the universe. The way in which Sherlock's smile turns timid when John compliments him, the contrast between the epic showoff that Sherlock usually is and the insecurity that roils just beneath the surface. The insecurity that only John is allowed to bear witness to.

John shakes himself out of the sudden reverie. It's uncanny how much space Sherlock takes up in his head.

He finds solace in the thought that there will be plenty of time to figure out the unspoken entity between them later. Later, when John is ready and Sherlock is... what?

Yes, plenty of time to figure it all out.

John leans back in his armchair and shifts his gaze to the television. The news is on. John folds the newspaper into his lap.

Twenty minutes later, as John is paying a moderate amount of attention to a news report about Syria, he hears the front door open and then bang shut downstairs.

Footsteps on the stairs.

Frantic footsteps.

They're not the sorts of bouncy, excited footsteps Sherlock employs where there's a new case or a breakthrough in an old one.

John cranes his neck towards the door.

Sherlock barges in, hair rain-matted, eyes wide and breathing laboured. He closes the door to their apartment after glancing downstairs as though expecting someone to be following him.

Without even thinking, John stands up next to his chair. He's battle-ready, suspecting Sherlock has meddled with something dangerous and now requires his assistance. John is not even disappointed at the sudden end to his peaceful Saturday evening.

Sherlock is not stripping off his greatcoat like he usually does. He looks as though he's trying to decide on a game plan of some sorts; biting his lip and gasping as though upset or in pain.

John realizes Sherlock has draped his left arm around his waist as though trying to support his midriff.

Before John gets a chance to ask a question, Sherlock's eyes dart past him to the television screen. He looks taken aback and John instinctively turns to see what has suddenly piqued his interest in such a alarming manner.

It's a news report about a homicide in the western parts of Greater London. The body of a thirtysomething man discovered near a train station, brutally stabbed to death.

John is about to ask if this is a new case they've got on, but Sherlock suddenly raises his arm in a strange gesture. He holds out his open palm, fingers outstretched as though he's telekinetically trying to force John to comply. "John, please don't-"

"Don't what?" John asks, utterly confounded.

'Tonight's attack signifies the third deadly assault of non-gang related male individuals in the suburbs of greater London in recent years,' the newscaster is reading from her teleprompter.

"Shut it off," Sherlock tells him with a stern tone. It's not a request, it's an order. Sherlock never uses this tone with John. Never. This tone is reserved for Moriarty, for Anderson and other idiots. Idiots trying to keep Sherlock from a puzzle. Idiots trying to harm John.

John draws in a breath. Nothing makes sense.

Sherlock's coat has fallen slightly open, and in the dim light John notices a dark, expanding blotch of blood underneath where Sherlock is pressing his left palm against his midriff.

"John, if you value your life and mine, you will shut that off right now."

John stands frozen, alarm in his eyes, uncomprehending of why shutting out the television is suddenly more important than his best friend bleeding onto the carpeting.

Sherlock now looks more desperate than John has ever seen him, his eyes fixed on John's hand that's holding onto the remote control. He must've grabbed it without realizing, when Sherlock had barged in.

"John, please!" Sherlock pleads loudly.

John understands little except for this - whatever is going on, he needs to know. If there's something that's important enough that Sherlock would try to hide it from him, of all people, he has to know, he can't not know, whatever it is it can't be that bad. It can never be that bad. Because is something is wrong, then Sherlock needs him and how can he be of any use without knowing?

'This information is unconfirmed by official channels, but an anonymous source in the Metropolitan police has told the BBC that these may have been committed by the same individual or individuals-'

John looks at Sherlock, who is shaking his head as though chastising John.

'After passers-by heard screams, the body of a man was discovered in an underpass in West Ealing, defensive wounds in his arms and nearly decapitated by the cuts to his throat. The victim had likely managed to stab his assailant with a bloody Mont Blanc pen found on site and his yelling for help had alerted the station guards. This seems likely to have forced the killer to flee. The police are disclosing this information in the hopes that any individual coming into contact with someone with a similar injury might get in touch. These details have also been dispatched to all local hospitals' Accidents and Emergency departments.'

Without a word John drops the remote and hurries to Sherlock. Neither of them is looking at the TV screen anymore.

John grabs hold of Sherlock's coat and opens it wider, pulls the hem of the blood-soakef dress shirt from underneath the trousers and pries the man's fingers from pressing onto his side below the ribs. Underneath, a round small burrhole-like wound is trickling dark venous blood.

It does not resemble any wound John has seen on Sherlock before - it's not a bullet wound or a stab wound.

This was caused by something very specific. Something small and round.

John digs out a clean handkerchief from his trouser pocket and after wrapping it around his palm he presses it onto the trickling wound.

Their eyes meet. Sherlock's expression is hard to read; his gaze is slightly panicked and worried and he is pale, likely from blood loss.

"Sherlock," John gasps, "What-"

Sherlock, increasingly paler and swaying slightly on his feet, averts his gaze.

John makes a strangled noise, letting off some of the pressure from the wound and then pressing down again when he sees a steady weeping of blood still exuding from the hole. "Sherlock, this is not-"

"I told you not to watch. You did, and I can't protect you anymore," Sherlock says quietly and closes his eyes momentarily. His hands are shaking as he sheds his coat and follows John into the kitchen.

Why would Sherlock tell him not to watch the news?

John has never frozen on the battlefield. He never had any trouble springing into action during crucial moments.

This, however, is different because why would Sherlock have told him not to watch if it wasn't-

"John!" Sherlock's exasperated exclamation finally tears through his frantic internal monologue. "Some assistance?" Sherlock pleads and swallows, looking nauseated. Beads of sweat are gathering on his pale forehead. He has taken a seat by the kitchen table, unbuttoning his now utterly ruined shirt.

John blinks and then springs into action. He jogs to his room upstairs to find his medical bag. On his way back to the kitchen he grabs the TV remote to kill the flickering barrage of images on the screen.

John doesn't utter a single word during the fifteen minutes he spends cleaning, exploring, suturing and taping the small, round wound in Sherlock's left side.

Sherlock hisses when John explores the wound with his sterile glove-dressed fingers. The hole barely fits John's little finger.

Mont Blanc.

'Shut it off, John, if you value your life and mine.'

Whatever has caused the wound hasn't pierced the peritoneum. It's likely the wound will heal without a risk of a life-threatening infection even if John treats it at home.

A pregnant silence continues while Sherlock, nursing his side, picks up his coat from the floor and hangs it onto the backrest of John's usual chair. He is still pale, but no longer looks like he's about to faint.

John carefully packs away his supplies, making sure everything is tucked neatly into their right places in his medical bag.

He needs his things to be in order, because the rest of the world now feels unhinged and chaotic.

Sherlock's heavy, dark coat betrays no sign of blood. It still looks reassuringly normal, spread on the armchair backrest.

John turns one of the kitchen chairs towards the living room, towards Sherlock, who is now leaning onto John's armchair.

Sherlock bites his lip and narrows his gaze. John realizes the man doesn't know what to say. That is more alarming than anything else. Sherlock always knows what to say, always capable of picking just the perfect sharp words to tear others to pieces. Always.

John sits down and wipes his sweat-damp palms onto his knees. "Where did you go tonight?" he inquires, trying to sound like nothing is wrong but his voice has a higher pitch than usual.

Sherlock looks slightly surprised.

Sherlock isn't one for subtlety, for verbal foreplay of any sort, for easing into things but John needs this, needs to be walked through this gradually to lessen the shock that something in his knows is coming.

John still understands very little, but somehow the thought appears in his head that it's strange how this might be how the world ends, with the reassuring sound of BBC News in the background.

"West-" Sherlock swallows to soften his raspy voice which sounds as though his throat is very dry, "Ealing. I was in West Ealing, John."

John holds his breath and closes his eyes momentarily. His own dissonant pulse sings in his ears. "Were you attacked by someone?"

Sherlock regards him with a dismissive look. He seems to have regained his composure. "Not per se."

"Did you hurt someone tonight?" John asks.

Sherlock seems to recoil. John doesn't move his eyes from the man.

'You see but you don't observe.'

John is observing now. He doesn't want to, but he does.

"A bit," Sherlock says without any warmth to his voice. It sounds like a summary for a more complex explanation instead of his usual brand of dry humour.

"Did you mean to? Was it an accident?" John is surprised at the lack of emotion in his own voice.

He needs information, exactly like Sherlock always insist he needs all the necessary data.

John needs facts until he can believe.

Until he agrees to watch his world fall to pieces. There's still a margin of error here, a plausible deniability to be grasped at. Sherlock will have a perfectly innocent explanation for everything. He will. He will. He will because he's Johns brilliant and silly friend who doesn't understand human emotion but still manages to be the so loyal and devoted it hurts John's heart. Sherlock with a kindness that the man just hides exceptionally well.

'One day we'll be standing by a body that he put there.'

Fuck you, Sally Donovan, John thinks. It's not true. Not true.

"No." Sherlock says. "Not an accident," he sighs, sounding almost relieved, as though he's letting go of something troubling that he has been holding onto for a long time.

'That's why he does it, you know. He gets off on it.'

John wants to wipe that fucking smile off Sally Donovan's face. They don't understand. They don't fucking observe.

'Not an accident.'

John needs to ask the next question burning in his mind.

Sherlock needs to answer it.

It will bring ruin and pain and destruction but it needs to be said, because not saying it will not make any of this disappear.

"Did you kill someone?" John asks, and Sherlock looks at him as though still trying to discourage him, still trying to make him turn away.

Sherlock doesn't say anything, but to John a quiet Sherlock practically screams the answer.

"Do you kill people?" John asks incredulously, hoping with all his heart that this is just conjecture that his own stupidity has boiled up. Any minute Sherlock will huff with indignation and then laugh, because John is stupid, stupid, stupid, Sherlock always tells him so, jumping into ungrounded conclusions, elaborating from too little data.

This is not the most precise way to go about it, not the most descriptive and articulate manner is which to approach the subject, but John forgives himself for not being very eloquent at the moment.

Sherlock isn't looking at John anymore. Considering the implications of what they are discussing, outsiders might be surprised that Sherlock Holmes doesn't confess such things with his head held arrogantly high, his tone superior and full of hubris.

John knows better because he knows Sherlock. He is relieved but not surprised at the undistilled shame in Sherlock's tone when Sherlock finally answers.

"Yes, I do."

John stands up onto shaky feet.

Suddenly there is too much in his head, he needs to wreck something, get it out, tear it out the way it's all now tearing him apart.

He still doesn't have all the information but he has enough. He has enough for it tear him apart.

He screams.

It is not the yell of a soldier but the agonized, rage-filled howl of desperation. He bangs his fist on the table so hard that Sherlock finches and the kitchen cabinets rattle in their frames. John loves, adores, relishes the way in which his metacarpals crack as they hit the table and the blinding pain of them fracturing gives him a second's respite from the realization.

Still, the truth comes to him eventually.

Sherlock Holmes, consulting serial killer.


	5. 38 Five

**PART TWO: JOHN**

 **Chapter 5: 38. Five.**

John carefully flips the kitchen chair he hadn't even noticed upending, and sits back down onto it.

He looks up and meets Sherlock's gaze. His flatmate looks apprehensive, as though trying to decide how to approach a wild animal.

This is not how it usually is. Usually John is composed and Sherlock is the reactive one.

"Still bleeding?" John asks in a shaky voice. "If it gets infected we need to get you to a hospital."

Sherlock sighs deeply as though life itself is leaving him with the exhalation. "We can't."

They both know why.

John draws in a ragged breath, trying to will his throbbing hand to stop distracting him so much. The truth seems to be electrifying the very air, as though reality is somehow short-circuiting. This is no longer the same flat. This is not the same Sherlock, although in some ways it is. Reality has shifted.

"Does someone else know?" John asks, not even caring that stinging, heavy tears are squeezing their way past his lids and down onto his cheeks. "Mycroft?"

Sherlock nods.

"Figures," John snorts, "He always cleans up your messes." His laughter is broken and sounds like he's almost choking.

A thought occurs. "Molly?" John asks.

Sherlock shakes his head. "I snaked into her favour because I needed- wanted to see the late postmortem results of certain... experiments. She doesn't know anything."

Experiments.

It used to mean unidentifiable foul smells, morbid surprises in the fridge and the odd explosion, but mostly just a humorous oddity in an otherwise harmless Sherlock.

Now the word is tainted.

Like everything else.

John has stepped to the other side of the mirror and the way back is gone.

Anger suddenly breaks up to the surface. "Is that why you make her give you body parts, so you wouldn't have to- FUCK! Fucking goddamned bloody hell, Sherlock! I can't fucking-" John is squeezing the edge of the kitchen table with his fingers and his swollen knuckles burst in white hot shards of pain.

John then tugs at his own hair violently, leaning his head back, squeezing his eyes shut, tears burning on his cheeks.

"John," Sherlock pleads and John finally looks at him even though he doesn't want to.

"You scare me," John tells noone in particular, "You scare the hell out of me. This is a trick. Moriarty. It has to be Moriarty. He's got something on you, making you do this. No, not do- say these things."

"Not Moriarty. Not anyone. Just me," Sherlock reassures him but it's not actually reassuring at all.

John looks at him sceptically.

Sherlock clears his throat. "You need to hear this. Believe me when I tell you that I don't wish for any more distress on you than you clearly already are in, but you need to know. It's only fair."

John lets out a hollow laugh. "You never play fair. None of this is fair."

"Listen to me carefully, John."

John leans his aching hand onto the backrest of the chair for support.

Then he waits.

Some minutes pass before Sherlock finally says it.

"Molly never gave me any of those body parts."

John turns and retches into the sink.

Sherlock watches him quietly, running the tip of his right thumb along the tips of his other fingers in a nervous tick.

After the dry heaves finally stop, John pours himself a glass of water and downs it in one gulp.

Sherlock settles himself down onto the sofa, looking expectant.

John grabs his phone but doesn't swipe across the screen to unlock it. He claims his armchair, leaning into Sherlock's coat that is still draped around the backrest. It smells of rain, damp earth and something metallic.

"Couldn't you just watch gory Youtube videos like everyone else if you were curious," John says in a hysterical tone and grins.

Sherlock looks alarmed. "I am not evil, John", he tells John as though answering a question. A question noone has even asked.

"Sodding wanker is what you are," John tells him. "Fucking idiot."

They sit quietly for a moment until Sherlock turns to face John properly, back ramrod straight. "You have questions."

"What the fuck am I supposed to even ask? There's no bloody manual for this."

There never was a manual for dealing with Sherlock Holmes. Not ever.

"Whatever comes to mind. I promise to answer to the best of my abilities," Sherlock suggests.

"Well, why then?" John inquires, "Unless you think it's a stupid question."

"If I had an answer, perhaps there was a convenient cure. Needs must, and nothing else fills it. There's nothing like it," Sherlock says and the almost imperceptible but very real dreamy undertone makes John want to retch again.

All hopes of a more reasonable explanation for Sherlock's admission have now been buried. Assassin? Spy? Victim of blackmail? Power play with Moriarty? Prank? No.

No.

"Have you actually tried anything else?" John asks incredulously.

Sherlock grimaces. "Drugs work, up to a point. If the need becomes overwhelming while under the influence I can be careless, which is unacceptable."

"How many?" John's voice is shaking.

"I don't think you're ready for that one," Sherlock says mournfully.

"HOW. MANY."

"I catch more than I put in the ground," Sherlock says defensively.

John suppresses a shiver. "That's a non-answer, especially if you started - this - before becoming a detective."

"38."

John can't breathe.

He buries his head in his palms and makes a strangled sound.

Then he unlocks his phone and fumbles with the keys while black spots dance in his peripheral vision.

Sherlock appears at his side with almost supernatural speed and covers John's fingers with his own, effectively blocking him from using the phone. "John, please," he says.

John tears the phone away from his grip but does not dial the missing digit of the emergency number. "Why? What would any decent person do at this point?"

"Ask the rest of the questions they obviously have", Sherlock suggests with resignation and returns to the sofa.

"How is it going to help?"

"It's not, but at least you'd know."

If John places the call, it is unlikely they will ever have a single private conversation again. Ever. He'll never get a chance to understand.

"How many of them after I met you?"

"Only five."

John decidedly ignores the belittling tone of the answer. He's looking at Sherlock with a mixture of disappointment, confusion and bewildernment.

"The Yard has proven a mild distraction, and your company has complicated planning and execution."

Execution.

John decides to ignore this proverbial vocabulary choice.

"I did inform you of my peculiarities when we first met," Sherlock reminds John bitterly.

"NOT MURDER!" John abruptly barks, which makes Sherlock flinch.

John presses his fingertips onto his closed eyelids and then opens his eyes again, blinking. "How? How do you... How?"

John can't say it yet. Luckily Sherlock, ever the uncanny telepath, seems to catch his drift.

"It varies. The modus operandi needs to change often enough, both for things to stay interesting and for the police to remain baffled."

"Does Moriarty know?" John then asks.

This seems to throws Sherlock slightly off kilter. Clearly this isn't a question he had been expecting.

"Uncertain. Possible but unlikely. If he does, it would be logical for him not to have shared this information with you, since it's leverage he could use at a later date. And your reaction might be even more difficult for him to gauge than it is for me."

John looks at Sherlock with something that might resemble amusement if it wasn't laced with so much disbelief. "What did you think I would do, genius?"

"Admittedly hard to predict. I had hoped I could stall this scenario indefinitely."

"They always get caught, people like you. Sooner or later, they do. If there isn't a bloody Sherlock Holmes there to deduces the shit out of their crime scenes, they all inevitably make some sort of a mistake."

"Not all of us. Zodiac, The Grim Sleeper among others. Took long enough for the Green River one."

John stares at Sherlock. Us? Colleagues?

Is this the man he has been living with for a veritable amount of time now? Has it all been a carefully constructed act?

John can't believe it. He just can't. He refuses to.

There have been times when he would have bet his own life on Sherlock not even being a sociopath but an acutely feeling, hurting human being. And it'll be awhile before he can let go of that image.

Can he?

Any minute now someone is going to barge in with a candid camera.

Any minute now John is going to wake up in his own bed and Sherlock will barge in wearing his blue dressing gown, moaning about tedium and demanding tea he won't drink.

"Was I ever in danger?" John asks.

Sherlock looks at him like he often does - as though John is a bit daft. "No. Never. Not even if we had a falling-out, you left for good and knew about it all. Self-preservation ought to prevail over sentiment, but you are the exception."

Certain words of Sally Donovan's ring again in John's head like tinnitus. His throat is dry. He knows that what he's about to ask will be insulting, but since it's apparently open season and this day, or life in general, could not possibly get any worse, he needs to bite the bullet.

"Do you-," John draws a deep breath. Why is it so bloody hard for him to finish a sentence right now without needing to pause to collect himself? "Do you get off on it?"

Sherlock does not look insulted, merely thoughtful. Rare are the moments during which John is thankful for the man's lack of social sensibility.

"Not in the sense that Sally Donovan means. Yes, I relish that moment of death more than most other things in life, but I have never behaved in a sexual manner during those times. I am not a sexual predator, John, or a sadist of any kind. I derive no pleasure from suffering or pain. So no, in the sense that Donovan means, I do not 'get off on it'."

"Taking someone's life?" John asks in a broken voice. "How is that not making them suffer?"

"Because in that instant, their life is mine to take. It's about winning or losing. Kill or be killed. It transcends any pain they might feel in that short instant."

"Can't you stop?"

"I could. It's like smoking - you can cease, but the need never stops. Crime scenes remind me of it. It's a double-edged sword, really, this detective business. It gives a fix of a milder sort, but reminds me of what could be." Sherlock leans his elbows on his knees and steeples his fingers so that the tips touch his lips. He looks thoughtful and surprisingly calm. "You can't cure this, John, no more than you can cure any other innate trait like left-handedness or a preference for chocolate ice-cream."

John wants to yell at Sherlock for making such a ridiculous comparison. He doesn't, because he has no energy left.

"Trophies?" John then asks.

"What do you think?" Sherlock asks him, raising his eyebrows.

"The... Parts you bring in-,"John swallows as he realizes once again that Sherlock has brought bits of his victims home, into their home, into John's home.

In the fridge. In the pantry. In the sugar tin. On the bathroom floor. Under John's bed, once.

"You usually chuck the bits in the pathology department incinerator after the experiment is over. I'd say they're not trophies," John muses.

Sherlock looks satisfied with this deduction. Proud, even.

"Mind Palace?" John then suggests.

Sherlock nods. "It's all there." He touches his forefinger to his brow.

38 rooms in the Palace for 38 lives lost?

Five for the lives lost while John was having his tea, while John was reading a book, while John was on a date or cleaning the clogged drain in their bathroom.

Five, while John lived as though his best friend was a decent person.

"Why do the police think what happened tonight is connected to some earlier cases?" John asks.

"I'm not sure exactly. I used to travel further away from downtown, but then I reasoned that you'd begin to notice if I disappeared for longer than an evening stroll or a library research session would plausibly take. Central London is better guarded than the surrounding counties, more CCTV and more private security firms operating in residential areas. I may have made the mistake of no longer discarding of the bodies as meticulously as I had. Some circumstances arose which forced me to improvise. Still, I don't think the police are anywehere near to the big picture."

"Arrogance."

"Excuse me?"

"That's what YOU once told ME," John says pointedly, finger raised in Sherlock's direction in an accusing manner, "Serial killers get caught because they get arrogant, they get sloppy and they make mistakes. And you are the most goddamned arrogant prick of them all."

John nearly recoils when he realizes that he has now used the term serial killer and Sherlock hasn't even flinched.

"I didn't make a mistake. There was no way I could have predicted the man would have a metallic ballpoint pen in his pocket."

John snorts.

"I understand you're upset. I had foreseen this might be the making or breaking of our relationship." Instead of looking at John Sherlock seems to be examining his own feet on the worn carpeting next to the coffee table.

"We have bigger problems than that. You do realize that firstly, I am now effectively an accomplice and secondly, you will likely go to prison."

"I am not stupid, John. I told you to shut off that bloody television."

"If they find you, regardless of what TV programs I've watched, they will think I knew. They will think I knew and that I accepted it and I helped!"

"Why would they think that?"

"Since we're living together, you have been piling up bits of your victims in our fucking fridge - even Donovan saw those bloody eyeballs - and since everyone already assumes you've been buggering me up the arse from the minute we met, is it such a fucking stretch for them to think I might have been aware of the mass murder you're committing in the name of science or whatever reason?!"

"The correct term is not mass-"

"For fuck's sake, Sherlock! I DON'T CARE!"

"What are you going to do, then?" Sherlock is now eyeing John's phone as though it might miraculously spring to life.

"Do you honestly think they won't catch you after tonight?"

Sherlock mulls this over for a moment. "Quite certain."

"And you are capable of stopping?"

38\. Five.

"Certainly, if I so choose."

John doesn't look convinced. "We need some time to figure this out. Whatever we, I, we choose, it's not going to change what's already happened. Let's just take a timeout, yeah?"

A timeout, because as much as John needs to do so for the sake of decency and humanity and everything else nice and normal and reasonable, he can't make that phone call right now.

Not yet. Possibly not ever?

If they both eventually go down kicking and screaming over this anyway, at least they can do that from a more level-headed starting point than what John is currently feeling.

Sherlock nods wordlessly.

They need time.

Which is exactly what they don't have, because after a minute there's a knock on the door, and Lestrade's impatient voice floats through the door. "Sherlock? You're not answering your texts. We need you at a scene in West Ealing."

It sounds familiar. John's mind leaps into the deduction and suddenly his chest feels like it's being crushed from the inside.

West Ealing.

"No," John gasps, "We can't. I can't." His tone is desperate. "Tell them I'm on a date, out of town, whatever! You're the best liar on the planet, do it!"

Without realizing, his tone has not been quiet enough. "John, is that you?" enquires Lestrade's impatient voice, "Is Sherlock in? We've got to get the two of you onto a scene."

John suddenly realizes this may not even be the first time Sherlock has been triumphantly escorted by Scotland Yard to assess his own handiwork. The thought makes his guts twist and he feels like throwing up again. "We can't," he tells Sherlock.

Sherlock's gaze is merciless. "We can and we will. Unless you want to risk the game to end right now."

Sherlock tosses John his coat, and after they've dressed Sherlock flings the door open to reveal an impatient-looking Lestrade. John follows the DI and Sherlock down the steps. Sherlock begins firing question to Lestrade about the case while John remains silent.

While they stand on the curb, waiting for their transports, Lestrade asks John what has happened to his now black-and-blue, swollen hand. John hums dismissively.

It's just a crime scene, John tells himself. Nothing to it. He tries to compartmentalize, to shove what they've just been discussing to the back of his mind.

He watches Sherlock, envies the manner in which the man is acting as though nothing out of the ordinary has been going on. Even if John had Sherlock's intellectual capabilities he doubts he could match the man's prowess for nonchalance. It's ridiculous to even try, after being dealt a sucker punch like this.

38\. Five.

John ducks down to enter the cab Sherlock has hailed. For a split second he wonders why Sherlock always refuses to ride in police cars.

Is this how it's going to be for John now, looking for hidden meanings, answers, explanations in everything? Looking for some sort of reason and sense? Looking for something that isn't there?

Nothing makes sense.

He follows Sherlock, like he always does. Follows him where, ultimately?

John glances at Sherlock, who seems to be fiddling with his phone but isn't actually doing anything. Sherlock glances up and swallows.

Whatever answers John expecs to find in those eyes, they aren't there. In place of the honest apprehension and the sadness that had been there mere moments ago, before Lestrade came knocking, is now the Sherlock everyone else is familiar with - the abrasive, determined, focused high-functioning sociopath.

Consulting detective and his blogger en route to a new, fascinating case.

Hat-Man and Robin.

John needs to play his part.


	6. Witness

**PART TWO: JOHN**

 **Chapter 6: Witness**

"Cat got your tongue?" Sally Donovan asks John, lips curled in a sarcastic smile. He tone is not unpleasant but it's not a tone one would use in gently teasing an actual friend either.

"Just tired," John dismisses sharply as he bends down to inch himself underneath the crime scene tape Sherlock is raising for him. His hand is throbbing and even if it wasn't, Sally Donovan's quips would not be a priority anyway. Usually he stops and engages, spewing veiled threats if he's feeling creative or at least glaring at the woman for bullying Sherlock. Today he is too distracted for any of it.

Sherlock is not his usual giddy self either. He seems calm and composed, confident as ever but the usual spring in his step present during casework is absent. And he keeps stealing glances at John.

Cut it out, John mouths at Sherlock while they follow Lestrade to a cordoned, tape-marked area underneath the overpass.

The dim light of a half-broken streetlamp and some cold-toned technical spotlights brought in by crime scene techs offer little solace in the darkness. Rain is falling down in a starry veil from the edge of the walkway above, lit by the lights.

Usually there's a crowd gathered at public crime scenes such as this, but this part of West Ealing is sheltered enough by some forest and doesn't allow easy access to the tube station so pedestrian traffic must be scarce. The weather is likely a factor as well. No spectators.

John has seen his fair share of gruesome deaths, in medical school, as a physician in London and in Afghanistan, during these sorts of cases, and he likes to think he is no longer affected by them to the extent that would threaten his sleep or general peace of mind. Has it already desensitized both his senses and his moral compass to that extent?

John has a hunch that tonight will nullify that desensitization.

Stay away from Sherlock Holmes, the memory of Sally Donovan's lilting voice sings in his head.

It was death that Sherlock had seduced him with that first evening at Baker Street - the promise of a mystery in the shape of a woman's corpse.

How was it that Sally Donovan had seen the final move of this dance, but John hadn't?

John stands back as Sherlock begins his routine. He kneels down, using his gloved hand to cushion his landing in a kneeling position. His movements are calculated and slower than usual.

John realizes he never gave Sherlock anything for the pain from the stab wound. In all likelihood the pain must be agonizing by now.

As far as John can tell, there is nothing in Sherlock's posture, his confident stride or his already escalating string of deductions that would betray a sense of familiarity in the scene. Like the body parts in their flat, Sherlock is literally hiding in plain sight.

John shivers. Whether from the cold or something else, he does not know or care to analyze. He realizes that despite how terrifying it all is, he is in awe of this further evidence of Sherlock's calculated brilliance.

It is only now that John dares to step closer and drop his gaze to look at the victim. He nearly stumbles in his step when reality kicks in.

This is not brilliance.

This is murder.

The victim is an athletic-looking male somewhere in his mid-thirties. Roughly Sherlock's height. He is dressed in a jacket and worn jeans. His hair is a mess, perhaps from being pelted by the rain and blown around by the wind.

He's lying on the ground, in an asymmetrical position - clearly not any sort of a carefully arranged scene. To John the man looks like he has just crumpled down onto the ground without even trying to break his fall with an outstretched arm.

There's so much blood it's hard to pay attention to anything else. It colours the victim's clothing, gathers in puddles around him on the ground, seeping into a nearby strom drain in swirly patterns with the rainwater.

John's gaze follows the congealed rivers of it up the victim's torso and something in his composure break when his eyes fall upon the man's neck. The throat has been sliced open nearly circularly. The eyes are open, unseeing - there's that glassy, mottled quality present that a trained eye will immediately recognize as a certain sign of death.

John blinks, trying to calm his breathing. He needs to focus. He needs to not think about anything else than the gravel beneath his feet, the rain falling, the cold wind making his fingertips tingle, the hole in his left sock. Focus.

Focus on anything but the lifeless body before him.

Focus on Sherlock instead?

John swallows and turns around. Sherlock is stripping off a pair of gloves - John had been so transfixed on the victim that he only now realizes Sherlock had been kneeling by him and seems to have now concluded his assessment.

"What am I doing here?" Sherlock asks Lestrade with a put-upon tone.

Lestrade runs a hand through his greyish hair. "Look at the details. Anderson says he's never seen anyone's windpipe or whatever cut like that-"

Sherlock peers at the body, "Not just the windpipe. The entire glottis is transected."

"Glottis then. He's never seen anyone's throat being carved out so neatly, and considering that the killer was likely interrupted by the guards, this can't be just a random mugging gone bad."

Sherlock digs out a magnifying glass from his pocket and kneels down again, drawing in a ragged breath as he seems to be trying to move as normally as he can, carefully trying to hide his injury.

"He must've expired quickly - it's a miracle he'd managed to stab his assailant with anything. Are you absolutely certain the pen, or whatever it was, had actually hit a target? The blood on it could be his own. The stabbing could also be wholly unrelated to the mugging, did you look into that, hmm, Detective Inspector?" Sherlock mocks, "Any suspects? If I were you, which is a fate I am eternally grateful from having been spared from, I would survey all who may have harboured ill will towards this man. That would explain the ragged, haphazard nature of some of the throat lacerations and the fact that the killer had used such a generally messy, showy method. Overkill for a mugging, really. Likely a crime of passion, the perpetrator someone very worried about getting caught since he may have taken the time to follow his victim all the way here. Where does he live?"

"Two kilometres from here. According to his girlfriend he was on his way to return to a DVD to a mate and often takes a shortcut through here to get to the shops quickly. Why don't you think it could be a crime of opportunity?" Lestrade asks.

Sherlock stands up after poking around the victim's pockets. They've already been emptied by the police. "Was anything taken?"

"No. His wallet was in the pocket of his jeans, in plain sight. Not even that. Brand new phone untouched. Whoever chased him down wanted him dead. There you have it, Lestrade, a simple case of vengeance or something equally idiotic."

"Why would the killer just leave him here? Unless he was distracted or disturbed-" John pipes in.

"He probably was, since a tube station guard found him," Lestrade points out.

"Why would someone just slice a throat and disappear if they had no motive pertaining to this particular man or a desire to rob him? There are no signs of an attempted sexual assault, although that could have also been something the killers was considering to do postmortem," Sherlock rattles on in a light tone as though he's listing a things to buy from Tesco.

"Which is it, then? Unknown or familiar attacked?" Lestrade sounds both exasperated and confused. "You're all over the place today, mate."

And all the while the blood is still flowing around the victim, glistening in the rain like black pearls, running down the street.

John turns away and swallows.

He needs to go, needs to get away, get away from here, probably get away from Sherlock even though Sherlock is the only one who has the answers. All of the answers except the most important one - why?

"Maybe you're right after all. It could easily have been a mugging gone wrong," Sherlock points out conversationally and shrugs.

"Is that all you've got?" Lestrade looks disappointed.

"All I've gotten is bored. Certainly there is a graphic element to this that deserves commemoration, but some street thug may just have gotten lucky with a switchblade instead of this being some sort of a proper plot."

"That's not what Anderson thinks."

"Are you honestly trying to contradict me with something that such an imbecile has uttered?"

Lestrade sticks his hands into his pockets.

Sherlock raises his brows. "There was something in the news about a theory that this might be the work of a serial offender? Is this Anderson's moronic theory?"

Lestrade scoffs. "No. One of our fresh DI training candidates from these parts is saying that there are too many young fit men disappearing and being attacked for it to be a coincidence. All the MOs had been quite different, but the fact that they were all a bit like this, adult white blokes noone in their right mind would pick as an easy mark, rang some alarm bells. Frankly, none of us buy it but this new guy is insistent. We think he may have leaked it to the press to put pressure on us. I was hoping you could dismiss this theory altogether."

Lestrade looks expectant.

"I doubt this is a serial killer." Sherlock snaps his magnifying glass closed and slips it into his pocket. "Young men meet their ends violently quite often. They don't worry about walking around in risky areas after dark alone even though they should. Everyone should. Drugs, gangs, petty feuds over women - not really that uncommon, Inspector." He articulates the rank with a slightly mocking drawl.

"Yeah, I get it, but gang violence, drug stuff and these sorts of things usually are quite simple. Not like this."

"Are the criminal masses of London truly boring you to the extent that you are actually hoping for a a Jack The Ripper? Or could there be a big promotion up for grabs?" Sherlock is standing quite close to the DI, his tone challenging.

They match their stares for a moment until Lestrade finally laughs and takes a step back. He glances at John. "What's wrong with him? Looks a bit green around the gills. Never pegged him for a guy who gets iffy around blood."

"Food poisoning," Sherlock announces coldly, "I did tell him that something about the rice at that new Chinese place on Wolverhampton Street was off."


	7. For you

**PART TWO: JOHN**

 **Chapter 7: For you**

Right after the front door of 221b Baker Street finally closes behind him, John's legs give out. Sherlock, who was about to head up the stairs, grabs his arms and attempts to keep him upright.

The flashing lights of a police patrol car they've gotten a ride home in are still creating swirly colours on the ceiling.

John realizes he's hyperventilating. He feels like he used to when having a panicked flashback in his dreams.

Still, this is different, because he's wide awake.

His fingers are gripping Sherlock's coat as though they are the twisted, crooked claws of a crow holding onto its worthless loot.

He can't let go because if he does, this will not be his Sherlock anymore. He holds on until cold, lithe fingers pry his grip loose. His legs carry again, but his heart feels heavy.

Without a word and with the dragging steps not unlike those of a condemned man, John follows Sherlock upstairs.

They've barely shed their coats when John retreats into the sanctity of his own bedroom. Sherlock attempts to follow but John turns in the doorway and blocks his access.

"I need to take a moment."

"To do what?" Sherlock inquires callously. He is standing closer to John than is commonly polite. John backtracks a step which brings him inside his room.

"To not look at you," John says and closes the door in Sherlock's face.

Standing in the dark, he watches the strip of corridor light shining through the narrow gap between the floor and the door. Judging by the shadows, Sherlock remains outside for a minute, rocking on his heels as though unsure how to proceed. Then he quietly walks back downstairs.

John throws himself onto his bed face-first, burying his head in his pillow. His heartbeat echoes in his ears and everything feels slow and fragmented, as though his brain can only process a tiny bit of information at a time.

He lies there for awhile, not keeping track of time.

They'll never believe I didn't know.

They'll think we did it together.

They'll find out about the cabbie.

We will both go to prison.

I will never see him again.

Would it have been better if Sherlock had been locked away long ago, before ever getting a chance to carve this trail of death?

For John he had been a lifesaver - God knows how long he would have been able to hold out in that abysmal bedsit without blowing his brains out.

Why was it so that John's salvation was the condemnation of so many others?

Should he pick up the phone right now, save himself, perhaps save any future victims? Pick up the phone like a decent person?

John had luxuriated in considering himself the moral backbone of the two of them. The sane one. The decent one. But had it ever really been that way?

John cannot negotiate this Sherlock, this new and terrible creature, with his Sherlock, the one he has broken bread with, chased down murderers and kidnappers, put child abusers in prison and returned lost treasures from thieves to their gratefl owners.

John had never been so naive as to think Sherlock was doing any of it out of the kindness of his heart or because he wished to rid humanity of bad people. No, it had been a fun game, something John had hoped Sherlock was using to pass the time instead of more destructive hobbies. It had never crossed John's mind that there might be more terrible habits in Sherlock's life than the drugs. Habits that the drugs had acted as a substitute for.

High-functioning sociopath, do your research!

John had always suspected that the label Sherlock obviously liked to cling onto had been a deflective shield of some sort - a way to insult himself before anyone else had a chance to do exactly that. To go on the offence before anyone discovered this harsh front wasn't all there was to him.

Hiding in plain sight.

John rolls onto his back and fumbles around the floor on the right side of the bed for his laptop. Piling two pillows behind his neck, he balances it onto his chest and flips the lid open.

He imagines Sherlock downstairs, pale and nervous, wringing his hands, pacing back and forth. Frightened of this retreat of John's away from him will result in?

During his medical training he had not paid too much mind to psychiatry. He had preferred more concrete things. Broken bones, ruptured appendices, gunshot wounds. The unprecise and subjective world of the pathological psyche was not his forte.

It needed to become just that, though, and fast.

John fires off a few search engine queries and soon the screen is filled with alarming results. He opens what seems like dozens of windows, and begins devouring the texts with his eyes.

 _"Professor Robert Hare has suggested that the term 'sociopathy' is preferred by those that see its causes being rooted in social factors and early environment whereas the term 'psychopathy' is usually preferred by those who believe that there are psychological, biological, and genetic factors involved in addition to environmental factors. Hare also provides his own definitions: he describes psychopathy as not having a sense of empathy or morality, but sociopathy as only differing in sense of right and wrong from the average person."_

John creates a bookmark. Why, he does not even know. What could he possibly use any of this for?

 _"According to neuroscientist Jim Fallon, individuals with low front orbital cortex activity are predisposed towards violence. The part of the cortex is believed to be involved with ethical behaviour, moral decision-making and impulse control. It controls the amygdala, which then is responsible for control of aggression. Psychopathy might be related to a defect in the monoamine oxidase A gene, the so-called 'warrior gene', which regulates the brain's serotonin levels. An abnormality in the serotonin system might be the making of a serial killer, if positive childhood and adolescent life experiences do not provide enough protective factors against the manifestation of these tendencies."_

John skims through some other articles on serotonin, but they don't seem to offer anything of value.

 _"These killers maintain a high degree of control over the crime scene and usually have a solid knowledge of forensic science that enables them to cover their tracks, such as burying the body or weighing it down and sinking it in a river. They follow their crimes in the media carefully and often take pride in their actions. Some of the most organized and intelligent of these killers have social and other interpersonal skills sufficient to enable them to develop both personal and romantic relationships."_

John clicks on a link that says 'psychopathy checklist'. It lists various traits associated with the disorder. John reads through the itemized index, ticking the boxes in his head.

'Superficial charm'. John remembers many times at crime scenes when Sherlock has effortlessly created a faux smile or turned on the waterworks in order to worm his way into the sympathies of suspects or loved ones of murder victims.

'Grandiose sense of self-worth'. Everyone else is always an idiot.

'Pathological lying'. If succesfully hiding your secret life as a serial killer even from your flatmate and best friend counts, then yes.

'Cunning/manipulative'. These terms were probably given life the very minute William Sherlock Scott Holmes was born.

'Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom'. It was a wonder the flat was still standing after Sherlock's run-ins with tedium.

'Parasitic lifestyle'. This makes John pause for a moment. Suddenly it occurs to him - making someone traverse the whole of London to bring you a phone from the adjoining room - how is that not parasitic?

'Lack of realistic, long-term goals'. John realizes has never discussed the future with Sherlock, who seems very much a here-and-now type of a person.

'Impulsivity'. God yes.

'Irresponsibility'? Thy middle name is Sherlock.

'Poor behavioral controls'. 'Early behavioral problems'. 'Criminal versatility'.

John clicks the window shut.

Half an hour later, John ends up on a serial killer fan website. God save humanity if serial killers have actual fans, John thinks. There's a whole subpage dedicated to something called 'death fetishists' with a footnote that it's not an official diagnostic term. The page's background is full of pentagrams.

There's a quote from Ted Bundy, who John remembers reading about. He was a prolific serial killer in the States, wasn't he?

"The ultimate possession was, in fact, the taking of the life," Bundy has said according to the webpage. "And then ... the physical possession of the remains."

John flips the lid of his laptop down and lets it slide off his fingers onto the duvet. Whatever further information he could possibly find online, none of it is likely to be of any help.

There's a knock on the door. John drags himself off the bed and opens it, finding Sherlock there looking somewhat apprehensive and holding John's parka.

"Mycroft is downstairs," Sherlock says and offers the coat to John.

"I'm not going to need my bloody coat just to go downstairs and get into a car," John spits out angrily. He's not in the mood to be bullied around.

After a short staring match, John tears the coat away from Sherlock's fingers and puts it on.

Perhaps Mycroft Holmes will offer more answers than the Internet.

"You knew." It's an accusation. "You knew," John repeats as he climbs into the seat of the large armored towncar with black-tinted windows that are likely bulletproof.

Mycroft Holmes regards him with the same infuriatingly composed expression he always seems to wear.

"I don't know which one of you is worse, you or him," John adds and taps his fingers on his knees. He feels jittery with nervous energy.

"Persönlichkeitsentwicklungsstörung", Mycroft Holmes says, "And genetic predisposition. That is all."

"I don't speak German. And right this moment I don't quite appreciate the circumlocution."

"Would you begrudge a lion for acting according to its nature, and killing a gazelle?"

"A lion is a predator, an animal, not self-aware enough to discuss morals. Besides, it needs meat to live. Sherlock doesn't need this, he just wants this."

"What if you're mistaken? What if he is humanity's version of an apex predator?"

"You mean some sort of an evolutionary device? That sounds like grasping at straws to justify the unjustifiable."

"That is such a first-world viewpoint, John, this valuing of lives of a small group of white males over the lives of thousands and thousands of children dying of malaria, women dying in childbirth, youths killed in pointless gang wars all over the globe. Why should you weep on the graves of Sherlock's victims, but care so little for the plight of those even less unfortunate?"

"Because no one should die like that! You can't seriously argue that what he does it okay because so many others die needlessly on this planet as well!"

Mycroft does not reply.

"Why young men? Is that his type?" John spits out the word 'type' as though it's a bee that's flown into his mouth.

"I think he likes to assert his prowess. He selects them because he can. Physically less able victims would not pose a challenge. At least that is what I have assumed. No one really knows the mind of my brother that intimately."

John used to think he did, at least to some extent. Considering how private a person Sherlock is and the carefully constructed cold front he wears as a mask, John had always prided himself is piercing all past that and seeing the person underneath who obviously had insecurities, vulnerability and needed others.

Or had that been a constructed mask as well, layers upon layers of brilliantly built subterfuge to even fool John the idiot?

"I doubt there is a strong sexual connotation to it, if that's what you mean, although I can see why you might suspect such a thing."

John gapes. "What?"

Mycroft scrutinizes him with a cold gaze. "I assume you have discussed his preferences?"

John swallows. "No."

Mycroft leans back into the plush leather seat, now looking somewhat evasive. "Never mind then. Sherlock is, thank heavens, not a sexual predator."

"He's just a fucking serial killer then, nothing to it?" John says, gaze narrowed. Somehow he relishes the way in which Mycroft flinches slightly. Apparently not even the big brother is unaffected when being reminded in such blunt terms what kind of a person he has been protecting all these years.

"Are your parents aware?"

"Mummy has her own issues to deal with. Alas, no. Our father passed away when Sherlock was eight. I suspected the removal of such a controlling figure from his everyday life may have escalated the manifestation of his tendencies."

"How did you find out about him?"

"There were signs that he wasn't a regular boy from an early age, but they were easily chalked up to acting out due to family problems and some sort of a more benign developmental issue. Autism, childhood-manifest personality disorder, what have you. There were several assessments by esteemed child psychiatrists and each evaluation resulted in a different diagnosis. It was only when Sherlock was thirteen that I realized he hadn't been difficult to diagnose, quite the contrary. He had been playing them. Presenting a different version of himself each time. Likely for his own amusement. I assumed he was merely brilliant, socially adaptive and a little manipulative. Then the fire-starting began."

John bites his lip.

"Have you heard of the McDonald triad?"

John nods. According to his online research, parts of the triad are now regarded as old-fashioned, but the notions that most serial-killers-in-the-making are cruel to animals and display pyromania have withstood the test of time.

"I have never been succesful in coaxing the truth out of Sherlock, but I have always suspected that the perishing of our cousin Peter, Sherlock's most diligent bully, in a fire as the result of an experiment of Sherlock's, may have not been an innocent accident at all."

Their conversation ends quite quickly after that, and John returns inside, feeling exhausted and boneless.

Sherlock is sitting in John's usual chair, fingers resting on his knees, looking expectant.

John's laptop has been placed on the coffee table.

John considers giving Sherlock the usual lecture about invading his privacy but right now it seems as useless as lecturing Pol Pot about not watering his potted plants.

"You've been researching... me," Sherlock suggests and John thinks it curious that Sherlock has chosen not to use the words that hang above them like the sword of Damocles.

Serial killer.

"None of it is universally applicable, you know," Sherlock says, glancing at the laptop.

John removes his coat and sighs. "Probably since they don't have a very large pool of data to extrapolate from."

"And the results are skewed because only those who have been caught can be studied."

John starts making tea. The normality of it all suddenly strikes him like a blow to the diaphragm. There's a fire in the fireplace and he's filling the tea kettle. An evening like any other in their everyday lives.

He tries not to show his uneasiness to Sherlock.

"I was never abused as a child. Borderline emotional neglect I could perhaps allude to, but not outward abuse. There are no similar members in my family genealogy as far as I know," Sherlock explains and John can guess he wants to dispel some of what he assumes John has read online.

"Apart from your ruthless son of a bitch of a brother, that is," John says while selecting a Lapsang Souchong variety from their collection. Sherlock isn't fond of it, he says it's too smoky.

"I will readily admit Mycroft is not what you would describe as a gentle soul, no."

John lets out a hollow laugh and steals a glance at Sherlock. It is uncanny how he has to force himself to connect the dots - this person sitting a few metres from him who he is so fond of and enjoys being with, and the cold numbers.

38\. Five. The more John runs them through his head the more abstract they become.

Still, the realization hits him like a sudden blow when he reminds himself what those numbers actually mean instead of it just being an idle mantra in his head. Not only has Sherlock admitted to killing 38 people, John has witnessed the evidence of his abilities with his own eyes.

"How's your-" John asks and Sherlock nods before John has a chance to finish with 'stab wound'.

"Bearable. I pilfered a paracetamol from your room. It's not much but since I'm not planning on sleeping anyway it will suffice."

John nods. He'll have to check the wound the next morning to monitor possible signs of infection.

"I don't engage in desecration of remains," Sherlock continues his debunking project.

Apart from chopping them up and sticking the bits in the fridge next to the lettuce, John wants to add but in his mind it sounds like a very insensitive thing to say.

"And I do recognize that it is a tragedy that many families never learn the fate of the victims."

"You do understand they're victims, then?" John says in an accusing tone, turning to face Sherlock.

"Of course I do," Sherlock scolds him, "I have not completely abandoned morality."

"You feel sorry for the families for not having a body to bury, but you don't regret killing them in the first place?"

"Needs must." Is the quiet answer, "Without it, nothing makes sense and nothing has a point."

"I sometimes feel horny as fuck, or hate people with the burn of a thousand suns, but I don't rape anyone or kill those that drive me nuts," John points out.

Sherlock does not answer.

John bangs a mug of tea on the coffee table in front of Sherlock. "Look, we could discuss this until kingdom come. I will never understand and I will never approve or accept."

Sherlock looks crestfallen but nods.

A serial killer wishing for acceptance?

John clears his throat. "That still doesn't mean I don't see you, parts of you that aren't... this. I think that in a way we're in this together now and we need a game plan."

"You would do this, for me?" Sherlock is staring at him wide-eyed.

For us?

Sherlock then looks as though he's had an epiphany. "Your loyality shouldn't surprise me. You've dutifully killed for Queen and Country. And you've killed someone for me once. "

John looks sad. "That's the problem."

Sherlock frowns. "What do you mean?"

"True, I killed for you. But you killed for you, too."


	8. The profile

**PART THREE: JULIAN**

 _No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone_

 _No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden_

 _\- Florence Welch_

 **Chapter 8: The profile**

My assignment to the Murder Investigation Team of the Asterley Manor bodies happens swiftly once the victims are identified. There were eighteen bodies in the well, matching eighteen of the missing thirtysomething males in the Greater London area that I had suggested might be part of a pattern.

Most victims are missing body parts like the victim of the brutal underpass attack in West Ealing. I suspect that the culprit may have been forced to improvise when the victim managed to fight back - forced to kill him quickly instead of removing him from the scene and performing more meticulous postmortem cutting.

The manner in which his larynx had been dissected and torn out closely resembles what had been done for one of the well bodies. The pathologist assigned to the case, Dr Molly Hooper, tells me that this was not the work of a surgeon - more like someone with a surgical textbook but little practical experience or training.

An experimentalist. An aspiring anatomist.

Another victim had had his heart cut out. A third, his tongue. Fourth, eyeballs. With a fifth our killer had turned his or her attention to the spine, slicing off a neat section of it. What on Earth had he done with it?

Toxicology is run on the bodies. A few of the fresher ones contain traces of sodium pentothal. It's what the CIA once used as a truth serum. It's an old-fashioned narcotic still sometimes used in anesthesia according to Dr Hooper. Takes awhile to kick in, and you'd need a substantial amount of it injected intravenously to render young, healthy, muscular men unresponsive.

How had the killer done it? How had he overpowered them and then whisked them away? And why choose such strong, able-bodied victims? Did the killer see something of himself in them, or something of a person who had been important to him? And how had he rendered them so unresponsive that he had been able to administer anything intravenously?

At first, my theory that the underpass victim shares a killer with the bodies in the well is discouraged, despite the similar manner in which he had been cut up.

Then the technical forensics report comes back.

There are several peculiar fibres found on the underpass victim that match none of his clothing. It's likely that they're there because he fought back. Good example of the old adage that every killer takes something from the crime scene and leaves something behind as well.

The same fibers are even on the Mont Blanc pen the victim had used to desperately try to save himself.

The fibres are dyed blue, and they are a type of cashmere wool known as pashmina. It's an expensive, exclusive material used for certain types of garments. Forensics experts are able to tell Nepalese varieties apart from Kashmiri ones under the microscope, and they've even been able to narrow the fibres down to a scarves manufactured either by Saachi or Paul Smith.

That says a lot about our killer. Those labels are expensive.

Something is bothering me about this. I have printed a picture of blue scarves from both manufacturers and pinned it up on the cubicle wall of my new temporary desk at the Homicide Taskforce floor. I feel like I'm missing something but can't quite put my finger on what, until Lestrade walks by and says, "That looks like Sherlock's scarf."

He doesn't even seem to realize the implications of what he has just said. He has already continued past my desk and is walking towards the hallway, sipping his coffee. I grab a folder waiting on my desk and hurry after him. "Greg, wait."

"Yeah? We've got a taskforce meeting in five."

"I know but what you just said, it's a bit odd, really."

"Loads of blokes have blue scarves. That just looked a lot like the one he's always wearing."

"Coincidence?"

He laughs. "Look, kid, you got smart and you got lucky with the cold case connection. That doesn't mean you should start seeing zebras where there aren't even horses. Sherlock solves crimes, in case you've not forgotten."

I roll up my shirtsleeves as we enter the bleakly decorated conference room. We grab a couple of seats in the front. Lestrade is leading the investigation but he won't need to step up to the podium just yet. We still have a few minutes to go.

"Look, if we know someone who has a similar item that's come up in a murder investigation, wouldn't it be prudent to go through the routine, check them out? Use them as a control group?"

"Do that if you like, but for Chrissakes be discreet about it. We'll never hear the end of it if Sherlock finds out we're wasting time vetting him instead of looking for the killer."

I decide to forget about Sherlock Holmes' accessories for now and focus on what I'm about to present.

We need to catch a serial offender.

In all likelihood he kills people previously unknown to him, so scouting all the victims' social circles isn't likely to be enough to catch him. That means we need a profile.

One of NSY's regular consultant psychiatrists has been officially requested to do a proper pyschological profile, and I'm curious to hear it. The stitch is that he's abroad until next week so hasn't been able to start his work yet. This has lead to Lestrade giving me the opportunity to try my hand, put on a show and tell of sorts, to present what I've learned during my time abroad.

After opening the meeting, Lestrade summarizes what we now know of the victims. He has hung my original felt-tip marked map of the missing persons up on the conference room wall.

Philip Anderson, our head forensics technician then goes through the physical evidence. Many of the fifteen bodies are so badly decomposed that it will take weeks to discern whether any kind of fingerprints or suchlike can be extracted. I doubt our killer would be careless enough to leave much evidence behind. DNA one can't fool, though, and only a minuscule amount - skin cells under the victims' fingernails, for instance - is needed for a link. Still, sorting through everything from that well must be a nightmare. Some of the bodies from the northeast corner have been preserved through a sort of a soapification process Anderson refers to as saponification. This is what Holmes had been talking about at the crime scene - adipocere is the white, waxy substance created on the bodies by this saponification process, which will only happen in airless but damp places.

Murder victims turning into soap. This is a fucked-up world.

The blue cashmere fibres from the underpass body are not mentioned since that case is not part of this investigation. Yet.

A special family liaison team is assigned to take the news to the victims' loved ones. Donovan is in charge of that team and I suspect she will be a good choice. Although she seems slightly aloof and not very warm, there is an undertone of empathy in the way he treats people. People not including Sherlock Holmes. You can practically see Donovan's skin crawling when the door opens and the man himself slides into the meeting room with Dr Watson in tow halfway through the meeting.

When I'm about to turn back towards the podium, mine and Holmes' eyes meet across the room. A smile like a paper cut plays at the edge of his mouth - unkind and superior. It looks like a challenge. I try not to show my surprise at his arrival. I remind myself that after being invited to consult on the scene, he is a part of this investigation.

Dr Watson takes a seat at the far end of the room. Holmes remains standing in the doorway. With almost theatrically calcuated movements he removes his greatcoat and passes it to Dr Watson, who somewhat carelessly folds it in half and drops it on the floor next to his seat. This earns his a disapproving look from Holmes. I catch a tiny flash of blue on the floor - must be the cashmere scarf.

Lestrade undims the lighting after finishing a slideshow of photos from the crime scene.

I quietly clear my throat and straighten my tie. It's my turn now.

About twenty faces focus on me as I join Lestrade on the podium. He quickly introduces me and mentions the fact that I have been trained in serial crime investigations by the FBI and now I've returned to the NSY. Sally Donovan stands by the doorway, arms crossed, looking slightly sceptical.

These are seasoned murder cops, crime scene technicians and other investigators I'm supposed to sell my ideas to today. Luckily I've never been one to get very nervous about public speaking.

"Afternoon. As you probably know, we've got Dr Eleanor Carr working on a profile, but she is out of the country at the moment and won't be able to join this investigation until next week. In the meanwhile, I was asked by DI Lestrade to share my thoughts on what or who we might be looking for."

I pause and look around my audience. Neutral faces. No yawners. Good.

"First of all, let's look at victimology. We know that most of the bodies belong to males between the ages of twenty-five to forty. Those too badly decomposed are likely to belong in this group as well, if we assume they, too, are among those young or early middle aged males reported missing in the Greater London area during the past fifteen years."

I hastily take a sip from a glass of water I've poured myself from a pitcher on a nearby table. I realize I've probably been talking too fast, sounding nervous.

I glance at Sherlock Holmes. He's watching me, looking quite serene as far as I can tell since he's at the opposite end of the room. Dr Watson looks like his mind is elsewhere. He's fiddling with his phone but doesn't seem to be actually doing anything worthwhile with it. As far as I can tell he's not sending a text or playing a game. When he notices me looking he pockets it and straightens his shoulders.

I steal a quick glance at Lestrade who is looking expectant.

"Why these men? I had been looking into their cases while they were only missing persons. I could not make out any kind of a connection between them apart from age bracket and gender. Not a hobby, not anything in their employment or educational histori, not a shared social circle. Some of them were in heterosexual marriages, some single, some gay. These were high-risk victims - active members of society, with loved ones who would soon start asking after them. They disappeared from many different locations and situations - leaving a club, walking home from work, running through a park. Young men usually don't fear walking in dark areas alone as much as females do so the killer may have just picked them due to the victim showing up in a secluded site. Still, I claim that he has a type and I suspect the killer himself might not differ much from these men. I believe that they were victims of opportunity, likely not followed or selected by the killer prior to the moment when he decided to abduct them. Something tells me he picked these men because he had no need to select weaker victims."

"Since would require someone with substantial physical strenght and skills to overpower these victims, we're looking into ways in which he may have transported them elsewhere before killing them."

Anderson coughs. "Is this where you start the classic 'caucasian male, early to mid-thirties' thing? We hardly need a profiler for that." You can practically hear the parentheses around the word 'profiler' here.

I try to smile encouragingly. "All of the victims identified so far have been white and I doubt a woman would have dared to attack such individuals so yes, likely a male. Serial killers do cross racial lines but practically never exclusively kill from outside their own demographic. Caucasian, then. And judging by the ages of the victims, serial killer age statistics and the strenght required to overpower them, the killer is likely to be between 25 and 40 years of age."

Anderson shrugs. I take that as a small victory.

"This killer is strong, audacious and effective. Probably a lot less spontaneous than his selection of victims might suggest," I then suggest.

A couple members of my audience perk up.

"I'd classify him as a highly organized offender. He seems to experiment with cutting up his victims since every victim seems to be missing a different organ."

"So he takes them as trophies?" Sally Donovan asks.

"It's either trophies, or the dissection is a vital part of his signature. I assume you're all familiar with the difference?"

Lestrade crunches up his now empty disposable cup that used to house stale coffee. "I don't think anyone will mind if you give us a bit of a reminder, at least for the benefit of our civil consultants." He cocks his head towards Holmes and Watson. The latter is biting his lip, the former is glaring daggers at Lestrade. Probably because the man has just insinuated he might not be up to date in forensics terminology. I'm pretty damned sure Sherlock Holmes is very aware of such concepts. Holmes looks as though he might actually open his mouth and say something but at the end he refrains and takes a seat next to Watson.

"A trophy is a memento a killer takes with him from the crime scene, something that will help him trigger the memories of the crime afterwards. A signature is what the killer needs to get what he desires from committing the crime, the apex and the purpose of the whole experience. A signature is what sets him apart from other criminals of his category. In plainer terms, it's what the killer kills for."

"Like necrophilia?" a brown-haired older investigator sitting in the second row of seats suggests.

"That can be just a modus operandi or a signature. It's a signature if the killer's prime fantasy is to have a sexual experience with a dead person. If it's part of some sort of a more elaborate power play it might just be an MO through which the killer reaches the part of the experience he most desires. Does that make sense?"

The man doesn't nod but doesn't argue either. I take this as a sign that I can move on.

"So far no signs of sexual assault have been found on the bodies. This does not mean a lack of sexualized motive. We don't know if he does the dissection part postmortem or while the victims are still alive or whether that holds some sexual meaning to him. The same goes for the dissection part."

"The manner in which organs have been removed show at least a rudimentary level of anatomical knowledge, but the cuts do not resemble those of a surgeon's. I doubt we're looking for a medical professional."

"How do you know there aren't more than one killer? What if it's illegal organ trade?"

I turn to Anderson. "Would that be a possibility?" I ask him. I'll admit this hadn't crossed my mind, but it doesn't feel likely. Still, I'd be a fumbler of an investigator if I didn't exhaust all avenues.

"Definitely not. As you said, not the work of a surgeon - the organs were removed in a way that they could never be sewed back into someone else. I think we can rule that out. Serial killer pairs who leave behind such specifically mutilated bodies are also rare. Not unheard of, but rare."

"What do you reckon his signature might be then?" Lestrade asks.

"That has been hard to interpret. I might be wrong, but I think the key is in the way in which he cuts these victims. None of it reeks much of a sexual motive, so I think what the killer is looking for is in the act of killing and the dissection. It might be sadistic, might be that he enjoys watching the fear and the horror and the pain on the victims' faces but if the cutting is done postmortem, I think he's more fascinated by death and the fact that he has been the one to drain the life out of these individuals."

A strange smile is playing on the lips of Sherlock Holmes. I glance at my notes in an attempt not to appear too focused on watching him.

"The killer has attempted to hide his crimes quite meticulously, using a location that is rarely accessed. It's on private land and the manor isn't open to the public. The well isn't on any maps widely available of the area. The owners have only recently begun to use it as a hunting ground. I suspect this increased use of the grounds may have been a reason for the killer stopping to use it as a dumping ground."

Lestrade nods.

"He has likely visited the place years ago, must've known about the place since it's not on the tourist circuits or a well-known landmark. I would go so far as to suggest he somehow knows a member of the owner family. This, among other things, had lead me to believe that he likely belongs to least upper middle, if not upper class."

This elicits some incredulous smiles from the audience. Dr Hannibal Lecter is a fictional character and intelligent, high-class modern serial killers are a rarity, but back in the day many serial murderers belonged to the upper echelons of society because they were the ones who could get away with it.

"Judging by what we know of serial killer demographics, I think we're dealing with someone who is highly intelligent, has at least some higher-level education, has trouble with authority and thus is probably unable or unwilling to hold steady employment. Definitely enjoys flaunting his superiority. He is likely to have been a problematic child in some way but has grown to at least a somewhat functional adult. At least he's been able to fool those who know him. He isn't a hermit, but with this personality profile is not likely to be socially very popular either."

"That's all fine, but we can't exactly put that on a wanted poster," a blonde woman in a worn blazer suit points out.

"I agree. It might still be relevant, because during the course of this investigation, you will likely meet this man. Highly organized, intelligent offenders usually can't resist engaging with those investigating and trying to catch them. They will likely attempt to communicate through letters of calls to flaunt their achievements or correct false information. They might even offer their assistance in the investigation through some real or imaginary connection with one of the victims or the location in which bodies have been found. You will meet this man, and the sooner you recognize him for what he is, the sooner he will be caught."


	9. Formalities

**PART THREE: JULIAN**

 **Chapter 9: Formalities**

After my presentation, several team members linger behind to ask me questions. Some even ask about my time in the States. Two older investigators feel the need to put me down a bit, joking about some details of the profile I've just presented. I tell them profiling is as much art as it is science, but that this art has provided some important clues in several large investigations, including the racial profile in the Atlanta child murders and the fact that Robert Hansen would have a speech impediment.

When I finally manage to leave the meeting room, Sherlock Holmes is nowhere to be seen. His companion, John Watson, emerges from the men's room in the hallway as I'm walking back to my desk.

An idea occurs. Lestrade did give me permission to vet Holmes discreetly, didn't he?

"Dr Watson?" I holler, which startles him.

He turns and faces me. "Yes?" he asks.

"I'm DS Barrisi. We met as Asterley."

He nods and sticks his hands in his coat pocket as though trying to hide them from view.

"Could I have a quick word?"

He points at the elevators. "Sherlock's waiting downstairs," he explains almost pleadingly. Judging by what I've heard about John Watson, the war veteran and trauma surgeon, does not fit this almost timid man who seems to be tightly under the control of Holmes.

It makes me curious about their relationship. The rumour mill at the NSY has labeled them secret gay lovers long ago, but if that's the truth then they both must be brilliant at controlling their body language.

I lead Watson to the larger office area where my desk is. Most of the staff have gone to lunch and I'm glad that the area is quiet.

Watson takes a seat. I flash on a pleasant smile and lean over the desk towards him. "This'll take just be a minute. Due to what I just told everyone, that our killer is likely some sort of a police groupie, I've been asked to vet you guys as a formality. It's ridiculous, I know, since you've been with us for a couple of years now, but you probably catch my drift."

Dr Watson looks slightly relieved but still suspicious, which he is carefully trying to hide. As a doctor he's trained to be observant, to always look for clues and hidden meanings, for things people don't say. Why is he being suspicious of me? True, I haven't been around the NSY for long and I know that Sherlock Holmes has always had to endure quite a lot of bullying from the unit. Maybe what I'm seeing in John Watson's eyes is protectiveness?

I dig out a list of the last known locations the missing men. I go through the dates with Watson. He'd been out of the country during many of them, or at medical school hundreds of kilometres away from London. He could even remember some exam dates that coincided with the dates of the disappearances.

He's lived in London and known Sherlock Holmes for two years now. The number of victims found in the well who disappeared during that time are not very numerous, and Watson checks his calendar for each of those dates. He'd been at work - evening shifts mostly - or at a location where there have been others present. Only one doesn't seem to check out - the night that the body in the underpass was found. That night he'd been home alone, because Sherlock had been out.

Whoever killed these people, it wasn't Dr John Watson. I never thought it was. From the small amount of time I have now spent with him, he seems like a nice man. Private, aloof and thrilled by the sort of detective work he does with Holmes but that is hardly a crime.

"Could I get your number? Lestrade has it but since we're all on this case, I'd like to reach you easily if I need to talk to Sherlock. Lestrade says he doesn't always remember or want to answer his own mobile."

Watson gives me his number and then tells me Sherlock's as well.

Nobody remembers any numbers by heart anymore since we really don't have to. I find it curious that he remembers Holmes' number that well.

"I assume you'd need to talk to Sherlock to go through the same list?" he asks, sounding somewhat relieved now that he's deduced that our discussion is mostly over.

I flick my hand in a dismissive gesture. "At some point, maybe. I think you'd have noticed if your flatmate was a cold-blooded killer," I joke. He constructs a smile which never reaches his eyes.

It takes a couple of days for forensics to process nearly everything from the well. For regular murder cases they're usually a lot slower, but the increasing media attention to the case guarantees that our material gets fast-tracked.

All victims are identified, some from dental records. Lestrade assigns an intern to look into even older missing persons cold cases instead there are more victims whose bodies just haven't been found yet. We also look at old, unsolved homicide cases with a fresh eye now that we know this guy may have been hunting for a long time. The earliest one that could possible belong in this series is a university student from Surrey in 1999. He's a little young compared to the other victims, but assuming our killer has always targeted those close to his own age group, he himself may have been quite young at that time. The student had been found without his head but what was peculiar was that his spine has also been removed all the way to the highest thoracic vertebrae. Killers who decapitate their victims don't usually bother to dissect in this manner.

If the killer had been somewhere around 16 to twenty during that time, that makes him about 30 to 35 now.

Several days later it's late evening and I'm sitting on the window sill of our concrete-and-glass headquarters, watching the slowing pedestrian traffic meandering past the building, when I hear the telltale ping of my email program. New message.

I'm not the only one doing overtime on this case. The amount of people staying behind past 5 p.m. is, however, thinning by the day.

We don't have any suspects. Families have been notified of the fate of their loved ones and the shadows under Donovan's eyes have deepened.

Water, time and cold winters have destroyed most biological evidence on the bodies. We have very little to go on. No DNA.

I stretch my tired legs by leaning down towards my toes before standing up and walking back to my cluttered desk and firing up my mail application.

The email I've just received is from the technical unit.

"Attn: evidence processed, match with case #86877868

Wool fibers matching those belonging to case #86877868 have been discovered on the remains of Asterley Manor well victim #12 (Aidan Lesley)."

Lesley had been the most recent of our victims to disappear and his body had been among those better preserved. He had disappeared two years ago, three months before the new owner of the manor, the son of the late Earl owning the estate, had begun using the grounds for fox hunting.

I rummage through my chaotic paper stacks to check which of the well bodies is case #86877868. I get confused when the number doesn't fit any of them.

Then I get an epiphany. There's something familiar with the number after all. Wool fibers.

Case #86877868 is the body in the underpass. This is irrefutable proff that it's part of the series.

It's time to poke the Hornet's nest. I wonder if I ought to ask permission from Lestrade, but then I realize that if I'm right, he will be forced to withdraw from this investigation anyway since he's too familiar with the main suspect.

And if I'm wrong, I will merely piss off consultant detective Sherlock Holmes, which judging by the stories I've heard, is not even very difficult to achieve anyway.

I dig out my phone and fire off a text to Dr Watson.

FIGURED OUT A QUICK WAY TO CLEAR SH SO THAT WE CAN GET ON WITH THE CASE. COULD YOU CUT A TINY PATCH FROM HIS BLUE SCARF AND TAKE IT TO TECHNICAL? J BARRISI


	10. The end of an era

**PART THREE: JULIAN**

 **Chapter 10: The end of an era**

The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur. First I get chewed out by DI Lestrade who has just received a very strange phone call from John Watson. The DI had stormed in half an hour ago, ready to nail me to a cross for harassing completely peripheral people, people who are also his friends.

He calls me an arrogent son-of-a-bitch with no respect for the chain of command. He also tells me that if we were dealing with a real suspect, my informing a person close to them of a crucial piece of evidence would have served as a convenient warning to the suspect to make a run for it.

He's not wrong. But weren't Holmes and Watson part of the team? Why hide crucial new forensic evidence from them?

I realize Lestrade is here not only because of some cryptic call from Watson, but also because he's seen the email. He's seen it, and since he's a damned good cop he can't ignore what's staring him right in the face. And he hates me because it's so much easier for me to face this. He hates me because I'm the messenger.

"What did he say?" I inquire, interrupting Lestrade's rant.

"He wanted to know what we had on them. He kept repeating he wanted to know what we had and why I'd put you up to this. He sounded beside himself."

I don't mention that I also may have informed the head of the Homicide unit about a possible suspect without consulting Lestrade first.

And I may or may not have mentioned that said suspect has been employed as a consultant for the NSY for two years.

As a matter of fact, the unit chief has now appeared on the doorstep of Lestrade's office.

"Sergeant?" she asks, and I stand up. Lestrade, who's standing behind his desk, leaning on it with both palms, still furious, turns to face our boss.

"DI Lestrade. Excellent. Just who I was looking for. Sergeant Barrisi has informed us that we may have a promising suspect."

I loosen my tie.

Lestrade seems to calm down at least a notch. "Debatable."

"If this is true, then you already know what I need to ask of you."

Lestrade shakes his head. "This is fucking ridiculous."

Other members of the team are beginning to trickle back into work, probably after being contacted by our boss, lured in by the promise of the case possibly getting a breakthrough due to this new evidence. They all pause, watchful, as they sense the tension in the room.

Commander Lynn Graves leans back from the doorway and calls out to DS Donovan who is stripping off her rain-soaked parka..

"DS Donovan, you're now in charge of this investigation."

Donovan looks positively shellshocked. I doubt she knows yet who the suspect is, but having to replace Lestrade is plenty enough news to surprise her. Donovan doesn't say anything to Commander Graves, just nods. It's become quite clear that the woman respects Lestrade.

Graves then turns to face us again. "DI Lestrade, you are temporarily relieved of command. Access to case materials is heretofore limited to team members," the Commander says.

Lestrade bangs his fist on his desk and lets out a colourful string of curses. Some papers float to the floor.

Lestrade's phone rings. He digs it ouf of the pocket of his worn corduroy jacket and when the sees the called ID a strange mixture of emotions crosses his face.

Disappointment. Fear. Alarm.

The phone is still ringing on his outstrecthed palm which he extends so that I, Commander Graves and Donovan, who has inched closer, can see who's trying to reach him.

J. Watson, the called ID says.

Commander Graves nods as Donovan, who has joined us in Lestrade's small office. Donovan grabs the phone from Lestrade, her movements careful and hesitant. Her expression betrays that she isn't completely up to date on the situation, but has gauged from our reactions that something cataclysmic is going on.

Lestrade exhales and turns his face away from us, running his hand through his hair.

Donovan presses the green icon on the phone and raises it to her ear. She listens, hums in aknowledgement a couple of times and then shuts the phone. She inhales, swallows and looks as though she's desperately trying to arrange all the pieces in her head into making some sense.

The whole team is standing by the door, listening, expectant.

Donovan's gaze turns steely.

I reach for my coat even before she opens her mouth. It's the whole team she addresses when she finally finds her voice.

"We need six units dispatched to 221 Baker Street. Consider suspect unarmed but extremely dangerous."


	11. The new normal

**PART FOUR: JOHN**

 _But never is a promise_

 _And you can't afford to lie_

 _\- Fiona Apple_

 **Chapter 11: The new normal**

 **1,5 WEEKS EARLIER**

John had always thought that Afghanistan would provide the worst nightmares of his life.

He was wrong.

Two nights after he learns the truth about Sherlock, he dreams of a graveyard.

He's standing by an open grave in the rain.

Next to him, Mycroft Holmes opens an umbrella and holds it so that they both are at least partly shielded from the grey, weeping skies.

"Conductor of light?" Mycroft says mockingly. "More like a catalyst of darkness."

In front of them, in the open grave, frantically shoveling dirt, is a shirtsleeve Sherlock. He pauses his heavy labour only to glance at John briefly. Sherlock is smiling but instead of being warm, his smile is resigned.

They turn around as though guided by an invisible hand. Around them, instead of grassland, endless fields of bodies stretch into the horizon. Bodies grey and leathery, some still slowly bleeding almost blackish blood, which the ground quickly soaks in.

Nothing grows in this land of the dead.

Suddenly there is no sound. No birds, not a living soul except for him and Mycroft. Sherlock is staring out towards the horizon, so not even the steady sound of the shovel hitting the coarse ground can now be heard.

Explosions, blood on the sand and the agonized cries of John's platoon comrades dying on the battlefield pale in terribleness to this silence.

John awakes with a gasp.

He goes to work in the morning. Focusing on the patients, hospital routines and the minutiae of supervising junior doctors is the only rest his mind gets now. If he stops and has time to think about it all it'll be like the proverbial shark stopping swimming - the truth will threaten to topple his resolve and crush him where he stands.

Even if they get through this somehow without Sherlock being discovered, John's fate is now inexplicably tied to this terrible secret that they now share.

After a lonely lunch in the hospital cafeteria, during which John mostly pushes around a pile of peas on his plate like Sherlock often does when he doesn't feel like eating, John goes to a small men's room in a side corridor that's been out of order for a year now.

He splashes some cold water on his face and peers at himself in the mirror.

He realizes he has felt like this once before. During medical school, his father had died rather suddenly. He remembers the first two weeks after, trying to focus on his internship and the neverending exams. It was like grappling with fog all the time, something intangible constantly trying to gain a hold on him.

What is it that he fears now? He's done nothing wrong.

Does he fear the law, the families of the victims or does he fear Sherlock?

He could never be scared of Sherlock.

Losing Sherlock, now that is another thing.

In a way, he's already lost. He's lost the person he'd thought Sherlock was, and now he is stuck with this new, terrible thing. A changeling.

It had always been there, like a shadow in Sherlock's life. This John can understand with reason, but not with his heart. Not yet.

38 lives. 38 lives lost and still he can't accept the level of heartlessness such a reign of terror would require.

Because the Sherlock he knows most definitely has a heart.

John hates how this new knowledge has begun tainting his memories of their times together. Everything is now interpreted through a darkened lens.

A week last December during which Sherlock had been on one of his dark moods - had that actually been the mounting desires of a madman?

Has Sherlock's child-like excitement and giddyness at crime scenes been more than just enjoyment of a good puzzle? What does Sherlock feel when he witnesses the work of other killers?

Envy? Admiration?

Was there something John could have done on those days when the yearning became overwhelming? Provide a distraction of some sorts? If he'd known back then, would some of those people still be alive?

Is he now a sort of a posthumous accomplice?

Why would Sherlock even seek friends, get a flatmate?

During his haphazard googling session on the subject, John had reads about serial killers with friends and families. The term 'mask of normality', used to describe how some have been able to lead normal lives and in the meanwhile commit some of the most heinous acts in human history, doesn't really seem to apply to Sherlock. The man had never even attempted to emulate normality. Instead he seemed to flaunt his exceptional nature, his ruthlessness and his disregard for the feelings of others. 'High-functioning sociopath Sherlock Holmes, irrelevant to meet you.'

The utter gall of the man: worming his way into working with the police, body parts in full display in his home. Hiding in plain sight.

John has even begun to question whether he has ever witnessed a genuine display of emotion from the man.

Where does his true self end, and the pathology - the unbalanced brain chemistry, the skewed impulses and the personality disorder - take over? Or are they one and the same, intertwined inseparably? Could he choose to shun those parts of him that are likely to destroy his life, and embrace the good ones? After all, Sherlock's mental prowess is formidable enough to overcome even opiate and nicotine addiction if he so chooses.

John leans on the cracked sink and tries to focus on the patient work he needs to get done during the rest of his work shift. Time to get back to whatever shreds of normality he still has left.

They fumble through the following days. There are cases. There is no actual game plan. They don't discuss the elephant in the room. They exist. They go about their lives. Lestrade calls once or twice to pick Sherlock's brain about the underpass murder, but Sherlock makes it abundantly clear that he is not to be bothered with such pedestrian violence. John thinks this must sound quite strange, since the yarders would surely assume that someone's throat being cut in such a creative manner would tickle the great detective's fancy at least a little.

John's thoughts keep going on in circles. The pieces don't fit.

Sherlock doesn't fit.

Even though Sherlock is the only one who can provide any kinds of answers, John stops himself every time he's about to ask something. It's as though he's trying to shield himself from any potential new information that would be... worse.

But could it possibly be worse than it already is? The big penny has already dropped. All the rest is just white noise.

He can't ask these things that go around his head like a broken record, so he hovers instead.

He develops a habit of idly following Sherlock around the flat. Sherlock doesn't seem to mind.

One afternoon, their strange procession takes them to Sherlock's bedroom.

John stops by the doorway. A pile of dry cleaning is waiting on the bed, and Sherlock's just carried in an armful of laundry from the tumble dryer.

Laundry is the only chore he ever does. Possibly because he worries John or Mrs Hudson might ruin his eighty-pound socks.

John watches Sherlock's fingers slide into his sock drawer and slip a pair of black ones with blue checkers into the right spot in the colour-coded line.

Sherlock is high-strung enough to beat even his sock collection into submission. Couldn't Sherlock just let go a little? If he let go a little, learned to relax, let things slide, would he feel the need anymore?

The need? Urge? Desire? Impulse? Yearning? It all sounds so pathetically poetic to John. There needs to be a better word.

Obsession? Defect?

There's a snap as Sherlock slides the wooden clip holding trouser legs together into a pair he's just hung onto a hangar. He puts the pair in the wardrobe.

John watches his fingers.

The fingers that dance around phone screens, cavort on the violin strings as though possessed, sink into putrefied flesh as though it is finest velvet.

These fingers are an image, which sometimes occurs to John when he's in the shower. He always tries hard to banish the thought of what Sherlock could perhaps do with them, but sometimes the fantasy lingers, and he indulges. He can never look at Sherlock in the eye afterwards.

Could a person, a special person somehow keep Sherlock's brain, his heart and his darkness occupied to the extent that none of the bad things would ever happen again?

Does Sherlock feel things like that?

John knows he could easily ask about it from his strange companion, but something stops him.

Could someone have saved this man?

Could that someone have been John, in another life?

Would he have been enough? Would anyone?

John has a sudden urge to wrap his arms around Sherlock and hold on tight. Hold on and never let go. It's ridiculous and overwhelming and Sherlock would scoff at such sentiment.

If John never lets go, noone has to die.

And he gets to keep this man.

And the life he's made for himself.

Because they're the exact same thing, really.

Sherlock has stopped rummaging around his sock drawer and is now straightening the sleeves of a crisp, ironed shirt. His movements are automatic, controlled, soft, the sweeps and the snaps identical in execution. His expression is calm, as though he is somewhere else. Mind Palace?

Is this the calculated detachment with which Sherlock takes lives? Is he completely present in the moment, or does his mind provide additional colour to the bleak reality, adding his fantasies on top to create whatever it is that he most wants out of it all?

Sherlock turns, and notices John staring at him. He appraises John with a slightly amused expression. "I sincerely hope you don't sprain anything."

"Mm?" John asks, sliding his left foot from the low doorstep down to the wooden floor of Sherlock's room.

"You're thinking so loud it must be the intellectual equivalent of a train crash."

John lets out a hollow laugh.

"You have questions which you hesitate to verbalize. It's annoying. I would much rather you asked instead of cooking up some sort of harebrained theories on your own," Sherlock says, pursing his lips while scrutinizing an undershirt. John can't see anything wrong with it. After a moment Sherlock lets out a noncommittal hum and puts the shirt in the closed.

John steps into the room and sits on the bed. He rarely enters Sherlock's territory like this.

This time John doesn't feel like trespassing. When you learn someone's greatest secret it sort of makes these smaller things feel rather inconsequential.

He waits until Sherlock has turned away from him, to fold a pair of jeans, until he opens his mouth. "What if we somehow get through this, what then?"

Sherlock puts the jeans in a drawer. "Curious. I'd assumed I'd be the one to ask that one. Depends on what you mean by 'getting through'."

"Would you ever tell me if you, if, if, if you felt like doing that-" John stammers.

"I wish you made more of an effort to finish your sentences like a proper sentient being," Sherlock sighs. "Very well," he then adds with a tone that's practically saying I'll-let-you-off-the-hook-just-this-once. "You were trying to ask if I'd tell you if the impulse hit?"

John leans back on the bed, his arms outstretched behind his back. Sherlock frowns because John's left hand is balanced on top of a laundered dress shirt. John shifts and Sherlock puts the shirt in the closet, frowning at the slight crease John has created.

"Everytime you walk out that door, I'm going to be guessing," John says.

Sherlock leans onto his wardrobe, arms crossed. "Everytime I get what you kindly refer to as stir-crazy, you will be wondering if it's boredom or something more sinister."

"Would you tell me?"

"Strangely enough, I've not analyzed this scenario. I don't know."

That's not a sentence one often hears from the mouth of Sherlock Holmes.

"Then what is the point of this conversation?" John sighs.

"A reality check?" Sherlock suggests.

John stands up. "I'm going to heat up that spaghetti."

"I don't particularly like salmon."

"You don't particularly like anything I try to feed you at home."

Sherlock grimaces sceptically. "There was that one sirloin you cooked yourself that was half decent."

John shakes his head as he pads into the kitchen.

Life with Sherlock Holmes - from murders to steak in less than ten seconds. And to John it all feels almost normal. What does that make him?


	12. Negotiations

**PART FOUR: JOHN**

 **Chapter 12: Negotiations**

The following Friday night, John can't sleep. He keeps tossing and turning restlessly, watching the numbers change on the screen of his alarm clock on the bedside table.

A little after midnight, he gives up, flings his duvet away and goes downstairs.

It's a rare moment of quiet at the apartment. Even Sherlock, ever the insomniac, has retired into his own room after they had spent an evening chasing down some very agile antiquities thieves all around Soho.

It seems that even though the stab wound had been healing nicely, it had been deep enough to still give Sherlock some grief at least when leaping over fences and making sharp turns when running.

John has been anxious, lost in thought and in a state of alarm for over a week now. So has Sherlock. Perhaps this vigilance has worn them out.

The atmosphere in the apartment, aside from moments filled with cases or visitors, has been like watching the seconds slowly disappearing on a bomb's timer, a quiet dread growing.

John wanders to the kitchen, opens the fridge door and closes it after realizing it was just an idle gesture. He's not hungry. Hasn't really been hungry for days now.

He realizes the kitchen is completely devoid of Sherlock's experiments. His right hand trembles slightly when he moves the tea kettle into the sink. He grips the kettle with his left one and curses quietly.

He's failing this.

He needs to calm his nerves, act as though nothing is wrong. He was failing at the crime scene in West Ealing. He could tell by the way in which Lestrade was looking at him.

He needs to keep it together, even though if keeping it together means depriving 38 families of the truth about what happened to their loved ones.

John doesn't want to admit he is falling apart, but surely he must be, because he's effectively choosing Sherlock Holmes over humanity.

He must be falling apart, cracking at the seams, because it shouldn't feel this easy, choosing his side.

Nothing will bring those 38 people back. And nothing will bring Sherlock back, if he gets caught and the tabloids get to plaster the newsstands with all the sordid details.

John kneads his slightly aching left shoulder with his right hand while idling away from the kitchen.

After a moment he finds himself standing at the doorway to Sherlock's bedroom. The door is slightly ajar.

John pushes it open with his fingers.

The room is dark apart from cold, weak moonlight shininh through the window. Only the hum of the occasional cars going by, and a steady rhytm of breathing from the bed puncture the silence.

John walks in and stands by the bed.

Sherlock is asleep, lying on his side, facing away from John. His unruly mop of black curls are visible on the pillow, the rest of him hidden under a heavy duvet drawn up to his shoulders.

John walks around to the other side of the bed and sits down on the floor next to it.

It's surprisingly warm in the room and not even the floor level feels drafty - Mrs Hudson must've finally fixed the heating.

John leans his good shoulder on the nightstands.

Sherlock usually never stays still long enough for John to get a proper look at him.

Asleep, he looks peaceful. Angelic, even, with his wild curls framing a face with pale, almost translucent skin. Perfect cupid's bow. Sharp, almost emaciated cheekbones.

Not the face of a killer. Not the face of evil.

John resist the urge to chase away an errant lock of hair that has landed on Sherlock's closed lid.

What is he doing, staring at his flatmate in the dark? What is he trying to achieve?

In the nature documentaries John has watched, even apex predators are somewhat adorable when asleep.

Had John not met and befriended Sherlock, could he have become one of the victims, one of the nameless, one of the disappeared, one of the lost, one of the dead? All that would have been required was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or would Sherlock have seen something in him, something in his eyes, that would have given him reason to pause, to choose someone else?

John would never know.

Why so many? Why not two, why not five, why not just ten? How many was terrible but not too terrible, when even one was unforgivable?

Sherlock never did anything by halves, John reminds himself and despite the morbidity of such a joke, he finds himself chuckling slightly.

He's never going to forgive Sherlock for those 38 people because they're not his to forgive. He's a bystander, an observer. An advocate for what good is there in this man, existing symbiotically with the bad.

He will do anything and everything in his power to prevent a single human being losing their lives in the hands of Sherlock Holmes. But for those already lost, is it John's responsibility to bring forth wrath and justice?

This he still needs to negotiate with both himself and Sherlock.

The duvet rustles. John lifts his eyes that have drifted to peer at a pairless black sock on the floor back towards the bed, and they meet a pair of familiar, sleepy yet curious greenish blue ones.

Sherlock sits up, slightly alarmed. "John?" he inquires, "What's going on?"

"Nothing," John says sheepishly. He can practically feel Sherlock's eyes scanning him, looking for clues as to why he's sitting on the man's bedroom floor in the dark.

"Why are you watching me sleep?" Sherlock asks quietly. His tone is not disapproving.

John circles his knees with his arms. "I was thinking."

"About anything in particular?"

"Where are they?" John asks, sadness creeping into his eyes.

He doesn't need to explain further. Sherlock will easily deduce what he's referring to.

"The less you know, the better," is Sherlock's answer, delivered with alert determination.

"I'm in this now. Might as well talk about it."

"They're here and there. Most in one secure, secluded location. Unlikely to be ever discovered."

"Will there be more?" John asks cautiously.

Sherlock leans back on his pillow, looking thoughtful. "I don't have an answer. The need will be there, but your awareness of the issue will cause... Complications."

"My existence didn't deter you before," John reminds him and collects himself up from the floor.

"I said 'awareness', not 'existence'. You will now treat any absence of mine with suspicion. You are a man with a strong moral code. It would grate on your conscience. You would likely spy on me even more intensely than Mycroft."

"Could you stop? If I... was your support system?"

Sherlock looks amused. "There is no rehabilitation programme designed for people like me."

"If it's like any other kind of an addiction, you could, with your stubbornness and your willpower, just quit. Like you quit the drugs. And the smoking."

"Rare is the hour during which I don't crave either of those things, John."

John exhales sharply, looking irritated. "But that's the point! You want it, but you don't do it!"

"I can't quit just for you. I can quit if I want to, but not just for the benefit of someone else."

John thinks that the statement is patently untrue. Sherlock had quit smoking because John had wanted him to.

"Not even if it ruins everything, wrecks every fucking thing in your life?" John asks, frustration creeping into his voice.

A sadness creeps into the shadows moonlight is casting on Sherlock's face. "This is my life. There is little else I will be remembered for, if the laws of probability are correct and I will be identified as the one who did all of it."

"There's a chance it won't, if you stop now. Stop right now. Stop, and we walk away from it."

Sherlock looks at John, truly looks at him in a way that to John feels like he's trying to peel away layers of his soul. Only Sherlock knows how to look at people like that. "You would do this? You would live with the knowledge?" Sherlock asks.

"It's much worse for you, since you have all of this on your conscience. All I need to be able to do is to keep my mouth shut and try to believe that there's nothing I can do because it all happened before I learned about it."

"I never wanted to put you on the spot like that."

"You put me on the fucking spot the second you winked at me and told me your name."


	13. Dead end

p class="p1"span class="s1"strongPART FOUR: JOHN/strong/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"strongChapter 13: Dead end/strong/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Before, there was just the one body. The one victim. The rest were theoretical concepts, abstract characters in a sad story./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Then comes the day Lestrade summons them to the forest surrounding Asterley Manor./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"That day John comes face to face with the real-life version of his nightmare./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"He tries to distance himself when they arrive on the scene. He tries smalltalk, tries to occupy himself with the technical aspects of the case, and at first it is just that - merely a case./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Then he watches Sherlock delivering his so-called deductions. None of his usual Christmas-morning like giddiness is present in his demeanour, his remarks and deductions are uncohesive and dismissive. His profile of the killer might sound somewhat convincing and mildly intriguing, but the manner in which it is delivered speaks volumes to John./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John knows what this is./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock is lying through his teeth. The only reason Sherlock could possibly have for doing so is a need to ruin the investigation, to throw the hounds of New Scotland Yard off the scent./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Off his scent./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"This is Sherlock's design. Sherlock's career. Sherlock's goddamned legacy./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"The brittle peace he managed to negotiate in his mind between his Sherlock and the Other Sherlock is smashed to smithereens when he stands at the edge of that meadow, the frantic barks of the hunting dogs setting his teeth on edge like like a set of dissonant funeral bells./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"38. 5. Eighteen. Eighteen bodies on eighteen plastic sheets./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Before, with just the one crime scene and just the one body, they could perhaps pulled off this ruse together. Now John is not so certain anymore. Because now even Sherlock is distracted and nervous. Sherlock had probably thought that his 'secure, secluded location' was foolproof./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"They argue. Sherlock tells him he's ruining everything by appearing visibly reticent. John tells him he can't do this anymore. Not this case, not now. He doesn't even ask Sherlock if this is his handiwork. He knows. He fucking knows, because he can read Sherlock better than anyone else./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Minutes prior, as he had watched Sherlock talking to the new young NSY detective who had the courage to contradict some of his deductions, John had read something on the Sherlock's face that had thrown him even worse than the remains of this massacre being laid out on white plastic sheets./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Pride./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"There is a part of Sherlock Holmes that is proud of this. Wants to flaunt it in the face of these investigators. Wants to save himself, but also wants to watch the NSY's finest fumble in the dark as they try to make sense of his false deductions./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"The physician in John understands that this is part of the clinical pathology of it all, remorselessness, lack of empathy. Still, it's different to read about it from Wikipedia than to witness it first-hand./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"The air feels stale and thick even though they are outside. John imagines the stench of the dead seeping into his clothes, into his skin, into his very being. He's tainted by it now./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"How could he ever think he could do this? He's not someone who can look unblinking into the eyes of the NSY's finest, feign ignorance and deliver a lesson in intellectual superiority in the process. He's not Sherlock./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"He needs to get out of this land of the dead./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1" /span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1" /span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"After hitchhiking back to London with a team of crime scene technicians, John walks into the first pub he finds./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"He gets wildly, embarrassingly drunk. When they finally refuse to refill his glass, he leaves the pub and stumbles out onto the street./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock had wrecked his life in all the best ways two years ago. Now he's wrecked it in all the worst ways as well./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"If he only, if they only had time to sort it out, make a plan, try to find a way in which to ensure nothing like this would ever happen again. If there only was a snowball's chance that one day, it would feel if not fine, then at least acceptable./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"An acceptable bargain?/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Is it selfishness, John's desire to hold onto Sherlock despite everything? Is he naive to think that the world would be better off with Sherlock Holmes free and living his life the way he chose?/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Is it a choice, or his fate? John's genetics? John's addiction? John's compulsion? John's indulgence?/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Holding onto a lamppost, John tries to focus his gaze, an action that is getting increasingly more difficult to manage. He lets his upper body slump lower, his gaze anchored to the ground, hanging onto the lamp as though it was a crutch. He wants to throw up but somehow can't even find the strenght to do that./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"A pair of black, slightly muddy men's shoes float into his unsteady visual field. The fact that they look kind of familiar is the last thing that his mind registers before he passes out./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1" /span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1" /span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1" /span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"The next morning, John wakes up on the couch, stripped of his wet coat and shoes./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock brings him a mug of tea when he sits up. His eyes are bloodshot and his head spins./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""I assume this is it," Sherlock says quietly and sits down cross-legged in John's usual armchair. He's in pyjamas. John has no idea what the time is nor does he care./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John sips from his mug and burns his tongue. The tea is weak and Sherlock always puts in too much sugar./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""What do you mean?"/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""You'll want to move out. Cease our association."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""That's the problem. I can't and I won't."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""They'll just assume we've had a falling out. Which you'll hate, because you dislike people thinking we're romantically involved. Still, I suspect you might hate it less than having to live knowing about everything."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""Going away won't erase my memory. What it'll do is cast suspicion on you even more. You were bullshitting them yesterday. That new detective practically called you out on that," John points out, strecthing his legs. He must be properly hungover to only realize now that Sherlock has even covered his legs with a blanket sometime during the night./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Very thoughtful for a murderous psychopath./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Fuck. The equation is impossible./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock's lip curls into a slight grin. "I could tell people I'm so tragically lovesick over your departure that my intelligence is temporarily dimmed," he suggests deadpan./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""Flattering," John says dryly. They both sip their tea before dissolving into a fit of not-very-mature giggles. John's mind flies back to the first of these giggles they've shared, downstairs in the dim light of the wall beneath the staircase, after they'd chased down the wrong taxi in search for the serial killer cabbie./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""But seriously," John says after a minute, "As far as you can tell, does this waiting game have a potential to end in you not being caught?"/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock puts down his mug on the table. "We'll just have to rely on my past meticulousness and the usual level of incompetence of the British police force."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""Don't you have a plan B? Leave the country, disappear?"/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""Unfortunately, disappearing at this stage in the investigation would, again, cast some unfortunate light on me. The resulting manhunt would never cease. Yes, I did once have a bag packed in a secure location - I still do, but being quite intimately associated with the NSY and the Asterley case makes this option unrealistic."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John draws in a breath. "What if we both-"/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""That would likely permanently implicate you, which I'm trying to avoid."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John looks down at his feet. "Stay, then?"/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock swallows. "Stay."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John realizes he can't promise that everything will be allright. That he will ever be allright with this./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"All that John can promise are no regrets. Not ever./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Realistically thinking, Sherlock can't promise him that he could just stop being the thing that tugs at his heartstrings in the night./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"On the other hand, certainties and outspoken fragile promises are not things that the two of them have ever used as the building blocks of their shared life./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Serendipity, yes. Luck, hell yes./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John closes his eyes, trying to memorize this moment. Whatever comes, this is what he will hold on to./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""John," Sherlock says. It's sounds like a plea. John opens his eyes again and meets Sherlock's gaze./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""I didn't do any of this to hurt you," Sherlock says matter-of-factly./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""You don't need to tell me that," John says, "I know."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1" /span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1" /span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1" /span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"It's five minutes past seven in the evening on a Tuesday night when John gets the text message./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"The message that is irrefutable proof that Sherlock is now a person of interest, perhaps a suspect even./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"FIGURED OUT A QUICK WAY TO CLEAR SH SO THAT WE CAN GET ON WITH THE CASE. COULD YOU CUT A TINY PATCH FROM HIS BLUE SCARF AND TAKE IT TO TECHNICAL? J BARRISI/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"They have something tangible on Sherlock./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"The scarf./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"The dinner John is cooking burns to a crisp while he sits by the kitchen table, phone in hand, paralyzed./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John had promised himself that he would be completely calm and competent if and when such a moment ever arrived./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"The moment during which the scales tipped towards destruction./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"He had underestimated how the fear of loss would suddenly squeeze his heart like a fist./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"He cares about Sherlock more than he cares about the dead. And he cares too much about himself to know that he can't go back to loneliness and dingy bedsits and patients and holding his cold gun in his hand in the evenings. He can't go back to no Sherlock. It's not fair./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Without thinking, he calls Lestrade. He can't seem to form a coherent sentence. He tries to ask inconspicuous questions but his mouth seems to be moving on its own accord and somewhere along the way he realizes he might be ruining everything./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Half an hour later, Sherlock comes home from picking up dry cleaning./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"It only takes Sherlock one look at John and he knows./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock walks to the kitchen, turns off the stove and dips the blackened omelette emitting smoke in the frying pan into the rubbish bin./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"He kneels next to John, who is still holding onto his phone with trembling hands./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""Go," John says. "You have a plan. Go do it. Go. Get on a plane."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock shakes his head. "No."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John stands up and the phone clatters from his lap to somewhere under the sink. "FUCKING GO!"/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""Tell me first. What. Do. They. Have?" Sherlock asks, punctuating each word so that they'll reach beyond the adrenaline constricting John's pupils and clouding his common sense./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"After some deep breaths, John relays him the contents of his discussion with Detective Sergeant Barrisi. Then he shows Sherlock the message and recounts his phone call to Lestrade./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""If they didn't suspect before that you know something, they do now," John says pleadingly./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock pulls him up by grabbing his elbow. He then kneels down, reaches under the sink for John's phone and places it into John's boneless hand. His gaze is resigned but determined./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""You need to call them and tell them everything. You need to give me up, John."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John's eyes widen. He bangs his palm along with the phone on the kitchen table./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""Never."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""John. You need to call them."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""No. Fucking no. Not ever."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""If you refuse, they will go after both of us. Unacceptable."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""No," John lets out in a pained gasp./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock's gaze narrows. He grabs John by the shoulders. "You'll be tried as an accessory. They'll find something, they always do. You need to do this now, or we both go down."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock's fingers lose their grip when John stands up and walks to the window. He presses the heels of his palms onto his eyes./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1""If you don't do this now, we'll never see each other again. John, please."/span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John opens his eyes, turns and looks at Sherlock, who doesn't sound all that calm anymore./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John is reminded of an evening not long ago, when a bleeding, rattled Sherlock had run up the stairs to the safety of this home./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sherlock is now standing in the living room, a hand holding John's phone outstretched, desperate. A tear is making its way down his cheek. Sherlock repeats his plea for John to make the call and save himself./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John will never doubt again that this man is capable of feelings. Capable of good things. Capable of selflessness./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"Sociopath. Psychopath. None of the labels matter./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"To John they never have./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"He takes the phone from Sherlock's fingers. Sherlock nods and John finds no hesitation in his eyes./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"This is Sherlock trying to ensure that tonight will not be the last chapter in their story./span/p  
p class="p1"span class="s1"John makes the call./span/p  
p class="p1" /p 


	14. The contract

_When it all is said, said and done  
Who can love you and still be standing?_

 _\- Tori Amos_

 **PART FIVE: JULIAN**

 **Chapter 14: The Contract**

To me it has always felt slightly farcical, the massive amount of people we sometimes send out to apprehend just one suspect. Not even the strongest adult male could possibly defeat more than a couple SWAT team members simultaneously.

After DI Donovan gives the order, we begin a major operation with the purpose of apprehending Sherlock Holmes.

I have to admit I'm surprised at how anticlimactic it all ends up being.

We cordon off the block that contains 221 Baker Street. Snipers take up position on nearby roofs. Dr Watson, during his short and to-the-point phone call, had announced that they are both unarmed, but according to Lestrade John Watson has appeared to still be in possession of his old service weapon.

Anything could happen in this sort of a scenario. Murder-suicide, double suicide, hostage taking.

We arrange safe passage out of the building for the only other occupant of 221B Baker Street - an elderly woman identifying herself as the landlady, a Mrs Martha Hudson. We provide little information as to why she is suddenly being evacuated into the waiting arms of the NSY. Strangely enough, she doesn't appear very scared or surprised. Tough old broad.

Living in the same building as Sherlock Holmes - she must have some tales to tell.

After Donovan is satisfied that the only persons currenly present in the apartment are Holmes and Watson, we enter the building. By enter I mean that the SWAT teams decimate the downstairs door rampage up the stairs.

Lestrade lingers at the back of the group with me, Donovan and the rest of the investigative team. Lestrade has been allowed to join us even though he's effectively been sidelined from the task force. Noone has the heart to throw him out.

He looks wretched. I feel sorry for the man. Employing a serial killer as a regular consultant for the premier homicide investigation unit in the country will likely lead to him being chewed up and spat out by the Internal Inquiries department.

I'm somewhat convinced that it's unlikely anyone could have foreseen the events of today transpiring. Not even Donovan. As much as people dislike Holmes, noone wants to believe that a person in their lives could be capable of serial murder. And, as the most popular quote from Holmes himself goes, 'people see but they don't observe'.

A wolf walking among the lambs.

The leader of the SWAT team cracks open the door to the upstairs department. There's shouting, some other muffled sounds, and then a heavy silence.

Donovan's radio crackles with a 'safe to enter'.

The SWAT team members who have taken up position in the downstairs foyer and along the stairs make way for us as we quietly walk up the steps to the apartment.

I pause at the door to take in the scene.

Sherlock Holmes is lying face-down on the worn wall-to-wall carpet, the body armour-clad SWAT leader practically sitting on him even though the man isn't moving a muscle to struggle. His arms have already been bent behind his back and cuffs are being secured onto his wrists. Holmes is grimacing as the SWAT sergeant doing the cuffing is lifting his arms away from his torso into a painfully unnatural position.

I've seen this before, during the arrests I got to witness during my time with the behavioral sciences unit in the States. Unnecessary, excessive displays of force. Mob mentality. Everyone wants to know they partook in teaching the monster a lesson.

It's brutal, it's unnecessary and barbaric, and it certainly hasn't escaped the attention of John Watson.

Watson is also being restrained by two members of the entry team. Not cuffed, but hands pinned behinds his back as he is desperate trying to escape their grip - to do what, I'm not even sure, but it's clear he is objecting to the treatment of his friend.

Holmes is lifted up to his feet. He looks pale but is no longer gasping in pain.

John Watson goes practically limp as their eyes meet. The men holding Watson's arms let go.

Holmes turns his gaze away, blinking. He looks disinterested while Donovan reads him his rights. He is then lead down the stairs into a patrol car parked sideays on the curb in front of the door to the apartment.

Watson turns to Donovan, eyes blazing with fury. "Well, aren't you going to say it?"

Sally Donovan's eyes are soft. "John-"

"This is the moment you've been fucking waiting for. Go on, have at it." Watson is glaring at all of us. Short of a better word, he looks unstable. Ready to snap.

Lestrade, who's been standing behind me, steps out into the open area in the sitting room where Watson is standing. "John, come on," he says to the man, "Time to get out of here."

Watson follows him downstairs, not even bothering to grab his coat. I watch from the apartment window as Lestrade leads Watson to wards his own car that's parked on the opposite side of the street. Watson is limping slightly. I never noticed him doing that before.

Sixteen hours later, Sally Donovan storms out of interrogation room number three, and slumps down onto one of the ugly orange plastic chairs I'm currently occupying in an adjoining room. I've been watching the interrogation ever since it started through the surveillance camera system.

The job of trying to coax the whole truth out of Sherlock Holmes has fallen to Donovan as the senior investigator.

So far, all that Holmes has graced her with, besides icy silence, is a humming rendition of what a classical music enthusiast in our task force has recognized as a very accurate rendition of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique symphony.

Donovan accepts a cup of coffee when I offer it. It's just the two of us in the room. I would have expected a larger audience, but this pointless approximation of a staring contest has been going on for hours and hours, and since we have likely made a good case with the information we already have, the rest is just small potatoes in the eyes of most task force members. Once they'd caught a good glimpse of Sherlock Holmes in handcuffs, their curiosity had waned due to the lateness of the hour.

We didn't actually crack the case. It was a result of some clever forensics and John Watson coming to his senses. At least that's what many assume. I think he knew something. For how long, I am not sure.

What we need to crack now is Holmes. So far it's been going rather abysmally.

"You wanna have a go at it?" Donovan asks, pointing her chipped fingernail briefly at the surveillance monitor.

I raise my brows. "You're serious?" I never assumed, based on my junior status in the team, that I would be let anywhere near these sorts of proceedings.

"Why the hell not? You were the first to point some light on him, at least that's what Greg says. I think you deserve your five minutes of screen time."

I turn to look at the monitors.

Holmes is sitting at the table, handcuffs chained onto the table, seemingly unmoving, back ramrod straight. It looks as though he's staring at the opposite wall. He's done that a lot. Donovan says that he seems to be lost in tought, in an almost trance-like state. When Lestrade came by he didn't seem all that surprised. "Mind Palace", Lestrade had explained. It appears that Holmes utilizes a peculiar memory technique, which he has developed into a sort of an alternate reality inside his head, an imaginary world he escapes into. I shudder to think what sorts of memories Holmes chooses to preserve in there.

"According to what I've heard, you told John Watson two years ago to stay away from Sherlock Holmes because one day, we'd be gathered by a gravesite created by him," I point out to Donovan.

Her laugh has a mournful edge. "Funny how being right doesn't feel all that good."

Before I enter the room, I go through what I know about this man. Truth be told, still not a lot. A good portion of my profile needs to be verified by further study. Some of it might prove to be guesswork altogether.

The only things I know for sure are these: it's likely this man is a serial killer. It's likely he has more than nineteen victims. He is capable of hiding this from seasoned police investigators. He is extremely intelligent, capable of forming borderline normal relationships and social networks. He is arrogant, manipulative and, according to most who've known him longer than me, extremely irritating.

There's another thing that everyone knows about Holmes.

It's John Watson. Where Holmes goes, Watson is never far behind. Hurt Watson and you will surely incur the wrath of Holmes.

I take a deep breath and enter the interrogation room after the warden unlocks open the door for me.

Holmes seems to snap out of his reverie when he hears the electronic latch on the door click. He lets his head loll back, regarding me with a put-upon expression.

"Sally Donovan's had enough of me then?" he asks, sounding rather polite.

"DS Donovan is taking a break."

"So they send in the rookie clown to keep me entertained. How thoughtful."

I ignore his jibe. It's just a warm-up exercise. I know he can do better. Or more accurately, he can do much, much worse.

"I know your sort," he then says, his gaze almost seductive, trying to entice me to swallow the bait.

"Is that so?" I try to sound disinterested.

"Pathetic little gunners. Never the smart ones, but always the ones to trample upon others to get their gold star."

I keep my expression neutral. It takes a lot more than that to chink my armour.

"You want to know what it's like, don't you? That's why you're here. The stories are never as good as the real thing, you know. I used to want to know, too. The only difference between you and I is that I had the guts to find out. You'll just have to content with having a clear conscience to let you sleep at night because you're on the right side of the bars. You're not better than me. You want what I have but can't bring yourself to do it."

I don't reply.

"Perhas you fancy yourself as quite the little criminologist. Where are your folders, then? Your little lists? Your structured questionnaires? Aren't you going to want to tick all the boxes, make sure your nice little profile fits? Check the validity of the McDonald triad, verify the Hickey model, walk me through the Hare sociopathy structural model?"

He's tired. His eyes look like someone's who hasn't slept all that much recently. He seems on edge.

Does he always talk this much?

"It's way too fucking early in the morning for any of that. I'm sure there'll be psychiatrists lining up to interview such a nice, polite bloke as you," I say with a shit-eating grin.

He scoffs and leans back on his chair as far as the chain attaching his handcuffs to the table allow. He'd probably cross his arms if he could.

"What are you here for, then, exactly? You have John's story, you have the scarf, you have the bodies."

"Not all of them. I doubt the eighteen in the well and the one in the overpass are your entire catalogue." Holmes is likely aware that John Watson had told Donovan on the phone that he'd admitted to 38 victims. According to Lestrade, who had interviewed John before the man had been moved to a safehouse, Watson had said that after telling Sherlock about my request for a scarf piece, he'd confronted Sherlock about what it all meant and the man had bluntly confessed to killing 38 people and allowed Watson to phone it in without moving a finger to escape.

This touching tale of friendship and a sudden need to surrender stinks to high heaven. Still, we have nothing on Watson. His alibis have stuck. He simply wasn't there when the murders took place. He may have known something, but as long as we can't prove he's been protecting Holmes during any of the murders, we're on thin ice in trying to pin anything on him.

Holmes, however, doesn't know any of this.

"That must drive you crazy," Holmes points out venomously.

"You do realize we're just doing our jobs?"

He doesn't reply. There's no way he won't get convicted of at least the eighteen in the well and the underpass case. He has no reason to co-operate. He's tired, and his life is over. I wouldn't have much incentive to co-operate either if I were Holmes.

"There are families who would very much like to know what exactly happened to these people and why."

Holmes stretches his cuffed wrists by making a rolling motion.

I glance at the door, trying to convey that the conversation is about to end. He looks as though he's picked up on this and looks mildly triumphant.

When he doesn't know is that it's time to use what I think might be my best leverage. "I'm here because I just wanted to let you know I've updated my profile. I finally figured it all out. I've altered my profile to reflect your and Watson's equal parts in this."

Holmes practically flinches. "Excuse me?"

I flash a pleasant smile. "There's evidence of his service weapon being used at least once. Trace evidence from some of the bodies fit some things that we've found in his belongings."

This is all make-believe and ridiculously vague, but Holmes doesn't know it, and considering his high opinion of police competence, it probaby doesn't take much for him to start building all sorts of little conspiracy theories in his head.

"Anyway, have a nice life, Mr Holmes," I say cheerily, stand up and walk out of the room. I then hurry to the adjoining room to observe his reaction.

The cameras reveal that he's been left practically gaping at my sudden exit.

Two other members of the team have now joined Donovan in the monitor room, having come into work on the first tube of the morning schedule.

Donovan finishes the sandwich she's been eating - sad-looking wilted lettuce and some sort of a mushy tuna concoction. Then she stands up, swats off crumbs from her beige pencil skirt and leaves the room to return to the interrogation area. She doesn't say anything to me. I know she's heard every word.

I and the two other officers return our attention to the monitors, waiting for Sally to appear.

Holmes is no longer leaning back in his chair as though he owns the room. His shoulders are slightly hunched and he looks, for lack of a better word, alarmed.

He raises his strangely multicoloured eyes when Donovan arranges herself into the chair opposite.

"Plea bargain," Holmes announces just as Donovan is about to open her mouth. She is staring at Holmes, brows raised to high heaven.

Holmes bites his lip.

Donovan finally regains her composure. "No prosecutor will agree on plea bargaining on a lesser charge than several counts of murder."

"Not what I meant."

"Explain."

"I give you everything, every detail and John is left out of it."

"Did he participate?" Sally asks bluntly.

"No. Never. He knew nothing."

"I find that hard to believe. We find it hard to believe."

"I give you all the victims and you leave him alone. He'll not testify in the trial. He is left out of it. "

"He needs to testify. At least you'll need him as a character witness for the defence."

"I'll waive my right to representation."

"No judge will allow that. They'll appoint a legal guardian after forcing you to go through a psychiatric competency eval."

Holmes leans closer, eyes boring into Donovan's. It is a testament to her courage that she does not flinch under his scorching scrutiny. "If he must testify he does it on tape beforehand, and it is only played in a closed-door setting. Then he walks away," Holmes demands.

Donovan looks sceptical. "It's against Crown prosecutionary policy to bargain with victim information."

"John is innocent. I'm not asking you to bargain. I have information pertinent to the investigation. Your investigation," Holmes adds in a suggestive tone, "What I'm asking in return for cooperation is some discretion and some meticulousness in making sure the Crown prosecutor understands that John had nothing to do with any of it."

Sally drums her fingers on the table surface. Holmes watches them with a hawk's gaze. "I'll see to it that he does," she says.


	15. Those left behind

**PART FIVE: JULIAN**

 **Chapter 15: Those left behind**

An hour later, I'm preparing to leave the NSY headquarters. It's four in the morning. The interrogation has been suspended for today. It will likely continue daily for a week or as long as it takes to go through 38 homicides in great detail.

I pause at the end of the corridor that leads to the elevators to button up my coat.

I have a press conference to attend at nine and am hoping to catch a bit of rest before it - though I doubt the adrenaline will evaporate to the extent that I will actually fall asleep. The media is probably preparing for a frenzy come daylight. Some reporters had already arrived at Baker Street by the time we drove off with Holmes - a major police operation in Marylebone hardly escapes their notice.

At the press conference I will be introduced as the detective who cracked the case.

This ought to be triumphant but it isn't. I feel like a fraud.

I look up and realize there's someone sitting on a chair in the corridor outside DS Donovan's office.

I wasn't the downfall of Sherlock Holmes. This man was.

John Watson. The one who gave Holmes up. And the only person that Holmes cares about protecting. Even at the cost of dismantling any attempt at his own defence in court.

Watson doesn't look like someone who has lost a friend or a flatmate. To me he looks like someone who has lost everything he's ever had.

His plaid shirt is crumpled and he has a sizable five o'clock shadow. I know he has been interviewed for hours today. Not interrogated per se, because he's not officially a suspect. Still, I doubt I'm the only one who thinks that he may have known or done more than he or Holmes are saying.

Watson doesn't strike me as a man who would willingly harm others. Not that doctors aren't capable of murder - Shipman certainly was. Still, I'm somehow convinced that even if Watson knew something, I highly doubt he participated. Call it a hunch. Sixth sense. I don't think we'll ever know for sure, now that there's a plea bargain being formulated to that very effect.

I should go home and shower. Prepare for tomorrow, when my career will receive the greatest possible boost.

I should just walk to the elevators and go, but when I look at Watson I feel like my work isn't quite done here yet.

Watson is staring at the opposite wall, shoulders slumped. I touch his shoulder and he raises his gaze.

"John?" I say, "Are you waiting for someone?"

He nods. "They said that Lestrade is going to take me somewhere."

A safehouse. Likely a hotel with a guard posted outside his door. "I saw him heading down to the lockers about fifteen minutes ago. I'm sure he'll not be long."

Watson regards me with an exhausted expression. "Can't I just go home?" he pleads, sounding slightly confused.

I shake my head. "There's a search warrant issued for the apartment and it'll take at least two days for forensics to comb through everything. It's also highly advisable to stay out of there at least until the victims' funerals and the court trial are done. Before that, the frenzy is not going to die down. Bricks through the windows, attempts at arson and prank calls 24/7 are the least of what you can expect of you go back. You'll be comfortable, Holmes' brother has contacted Home Office and offered to assist in making some arrangements. We've also sorted out your landlady's situation - she'll be staying with some relatives."

I doubt Watson will ever return to Baker Street. This case will dwarf most other serial killer cases in the history of this country. Judging by what's happened to many other dwellings of serial killers teenagers trespassing and theft will likely be a permanent feature of 221B Baker Street as will tourists on murder tours and victims' relatives stalking the occupants.

"Sherlock buys flowers for Mrs Hudson every Christmas," Watson says out of the blue.

I bite my lip.

"He laughed a month ago when the barista created that hat with foam onto his cappuccino at the British Museum. He fucking hates the hat but he smiled," John tells me in an accusing tone.

I know what he's trying to do. He's trying to negotiate the Sherlock Holmes he knows with the serial killer currently handcuffed to the table in one of the interrogation rooms.

"He likes strawberry ice-cream but hates vanilla." John grabs hold of his left wrist with his right hand and sort of twists. It looks painful. I think he's trying to distract himself. Then he leans back and tears start falling. "Who could possibly hate vanilla? It doesn't even fucking taste like anything!"

I touch his shoulder. "John."

He wipes his eyes on his sleeve and is clearly trying to suppress a sob.

"John." He looks up. "I once met Judith Mawson. She was married to the Green River Killer for 13 years. She says that he was the perfect husband. He came pretty damned close to being a perfect serial killer as well. She says they had a perfectly ordinary, normal life and that she thinks she saved some lives by making him happy because his kill rate plummeted during their marriage."

John takes this in. He doesn't seem to mind me comparing him to someone's wife, which is strange, because according to the office gossip mill the easiest way to drive Dr John Watson up the wall is to insinuate there's more going on between him and Holmes than just friendship.

It suddenly occurs to me that John won't probably ever see him again. Why would he? Why wouldn't Watson close the door on this travesty and get on with his life?

The sight of John Watson right now tells me it's not going to be that simple.

Some more words of Judith Mawson's float into my sleep-deprived head. 'I love the man I knew and hate the man who took him away.'

I strip off my coat and let it fall in a bundle on the floor next to Watson's chair.

I think my to-be-soaring career can easily survive one more protocol breach.

"Come on," I tell Watson as encouragingly as I can. He looks up, eyes red. He looks like he could be shattered to pieces by a breeze.

He stands up and follows me wordlessly down the corridor. We don't stop until we reach the false-mirrored window of the interrogation room that's still housing Holmes. The two officers assigned to guard duty are standing nearby. I wave my hand at them and they nod in aknowledgement. They're deep in animated conversation and don't seem to even notice that I'm accompanied by Watson. Or maybe they don't think there's anything out of the ordinary going on.

After all, where Holmes goes, Watson follows. Everybody at the NSY knows that.

I dig out a set of electronic keys from my pocket. When I look up, I notice that Watson is standing frozen in front of the one-sided mirror. I turn my gaze to look through the it.

Holmes is seated by the table, as he should be. I've heard he's an excellent lockpick but deprived of his coat and everything in its pockets it seems like he hasn't been able to free himself from the restraints. Or maybe he just doesn't see the point.

Holmes looks quite drained of energy himself. Empty somehow. His long fingers are drumming a sharp, rhythmic staccato on the table surface.

Watson watches this, mesmerized and visibly extremely upset.

I use my passcard to open the door. I hold it ajar for Watson. He looks at me as though he's seen a ghost. "Go on," I tell him and cock my head towards the door.

When the realization hits that this is not a trick, he wastes no time. He hurries inside, grabs Holmes by his elbows and drags him up to a standing position, the handcuffs and the chain attached to them rattling loudly in the otherwise quiet room.

Watson circles his arms around Holmes and holds on for dear life. Holmes closes his eyes.

I turn away, feeling like a trespasser.


	16. Aftermath

**Chapter 16: Aftermath**

The Crown prosecutor takes a sip from a water bottle, leans onto the podium railing for support, and begins his closing statement.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I am here to give you some good news amidst all this tragedy. The news is that the task that lay ahead of you all is easy. It is not taxing, it is not complex nor will your decision be controversial. It will be easy because this man-" the prosecutor points at Sherlock with his upwards-turned palm, "this man has made sure that you will go down in history as men and women of the commonwealth, who merely verbalized what all citizens of upstanding moral character and decency are thinking."

He pauses, taking a deep breath.

"This man has committed serial homicide. We have the remains of his victims and we have his confession. We have forensic evidence collected from victims both recent and more historical confirming his involvement in these crimes. This is a career, yes, ladies and gentleman, I say career, for murder is what Mr Holmes has molded into both his daytime employment as well as his gruesome pastime, solving crimes as a groupie of the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Mr Holmes has made a mockery of our police force, our laws and the most fundamental of human rights, namely that of the right to life."

"This society requires your assistance in protecting itself from the likes of Mr Holmes. It is by your power, and your power only, that we can ensure that no further names are added to the list of thirty-eight lives this man has snuffed out for his own entertainment. He is highly intelligent, manipulative, unwaveringly unrepentant, and both his personal and his educational history betray an incapability to conform to this society."

"I urge you to perform your duty swiftly and without even the briefest moment of hesitation. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I plead you to ensure that Sherlock Holmes will never again walk the streets of London."


	17. Distance

_When your fears are a swarm in the hive of your mind_

 _When the tears of your life and your loss are entwined_

 _I'll be everywhere you go_

 _\- Phildel Hoi Yee Ng_

 **PART SIX: SHERLOCK**

 **Chapter 17: Distance**

John once reminded me that nearly all of us get caught eventually.

I felt it in the days before my arrest. The pressure building. The approaching storm constricting my forehead as I watched the slow dance of the investigation into what was eventually to be referred to as the Baker Street Dissector case. My case.

The name is ridiculous. Dissector is an instrument, not a person.

I told Donovan everything. Perhaps it was a ruse - those claims of John's purported involvement in the murders - but I couldn't risk it. Not John. Not ever.

I described to Donovan how I used a quick-acting intramuscular shot of succinylcholine to render the victims immobile, then injected them intravenously with sodium pentothal. When the relaxant wore off in a couple of minutes they would be comatose but breathing. I used rental cars to move them around. If anyone asked, they were my inebriated friends passed out after an office party. I was only stopped once and this cover story served me well.

I told Donovan and the other interviewing officers of knives tossed into canals, of bodies dissolved with sulphuric acid, of how I was forced to abandon the well after the brother of my childhood friend inherited Asterley Manor and decided to take up fox hunting on the grounds. I told them about what happened in the underpass - I was careless, and had to abandon the scene when an Underground station guard heard the screams.

Mine were not perfect murders. No serial murder is perfect, for they are committed by individuals who are the sordid side products of humanity instead of being some kind of a pinnacle of evolution, a predator on top of the proverbial food chain. Mycroft is a pompous idiot.

On that night that was to be my very last at Baker Street, I remember sitting in the dim light of our sitting room, waiting for signs of approaching sirens, feeling the faint breeze of John's breath on my hair as he stood behind my chair, trying to decide whether to dare to touch me as a useless gesture of support. That night I felt sorry for myself for the first time. What a strange feeling.

What I mourned that night was not the end of the murders but the loss of this whole other life I had somehow managed to build for myself. A life in which there were good things, sane things, normal things. This was supposed to be the sidenote, but somehow, in a rather stealthy manner, it had supplanted the Need.

Sitting there, I imagined the edges of my existence narrowing by the minute, until there was nothing but the handcuffs placed on my wrists, the stale air in the patrol car. London's lights passed by as I sat wordlessly in the backseat of a patrol car. I felt deflated and yet, strangely relieved.

38\. 38 rooms in The Palace, 38 faces, 38 times the universe had bowed down to my will. It is almost like an entity itself, the moment in which the last vestiges of life leave a person. Those men never willingly gave themselves to me, but I took something from them anyway.

Remorse or guilt never plague me as I re-enter these murder rooms in my mind. It is done, nothing can change it, and no further harm comes from accessing these memories.

John and everyone else would call it perverse, injust, twisted, sick and monstrous. We all have unsavoury thoughts, fantasies. Mine merely have the added benefit of being memories instead of just make-believe.

At the NSY headquarters endless corridors of bleak, blinking halogen lighting assaulted my vision as I was 'processed' - a term they use to describe a suspect being photographed and their fingerprints taken.

I had imagined this many times. I had wondered what I would be feeling but my deductions rarely serve me well when they are directed at my own inner workings. Fear? Embarrassment? Bone-brittling exhaustion now that it would all be over?

I never imagined John would be most of what was going to be on my mind.

I never identified with the pain of my victims, nor did I spare much thought to their loved ones. As far as I was concerned I was a victim of my own neurochemistry, doomed to bear this existence and these cravings. Drugs helped postpone it, but it never goes completely away and narcotics had the unfortunately side-effect of making me sloppy and volatile.

The yearning is like a phantom limb that never lets me forget its existence.

John was the first to make me loathe myself because I never wanted to hurt him. When it would have been most logical for me to worry about my own fate, I found myself most concerned for his safety and his sanity. He never deserved any of this.

Mycroft had tried to discourage me from seeking out a flatmate. At least that's what John was supposed to be back then, nothing more, but instead of just finding someone to share the rent with, fate flung John Watson at me.

He will visit, I'm sure. He will, despite the fact that it will be likely he will be put under protective custody over fears that the relatives of my victims will try to retaliate through him. He will be either the laughing stock of the public - how is it that a doctor didn't notice he was living with a killer - or under suspicion for the rest of his life - he must've helped! Perhaps he will suffer both of these prejudices.

Maybe he'll stay away. Maybe I'm messing up facts with my own ridiculous wishes - my hope that he would not abandon me. To me this hope seems unbearably selfish.

He will visit even though that will make everything worse for him.

I spend twenty hours at the NSY headquarters. An hour before I am escorted out of the building, John walks in the door as though he suddenly has keys to the place. I must've been too tired and too unnerved to have formed coherent memories on that moment in the middle of the night, but what I do remember I have carefully preserved in the Palace.

His arms around me. His tears staining my shirt collar. I don't think what he was saying were even proper words, but they were all for me.

I never thought there would be someone at the end of the road who could weep for me.

I don't know how long he stayed in that terrible room with me. All that's important is that he did.

Before leaving NSY I am informed that I have been charged and put on remand. I am then taken to HMS Prison Belmarsh where I am to wait for the trial. Donovan promises to relay this information to John, who has disappeared from NSY. I demand to know where he is. Donovan shakes her head and I want to rip her head off with my bare hands.

At Belmarsh, after my clothes and other belongings had been packed up and taken away and I had reluctantly dressed in the ghastly green overalls reserved for new prisoners, I was given a short interview by the Warden. I said nothing. He assured me I would be allowed access to my belongings soon. Irrelevant. I could sense my silence unnerved him. To be honest, he'd been slightly unnerved by me to start with.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, I was assigned my very own concrete box, a two-metres by three-metres literal prison for my mind.

The rest of my days would be spent in similar boxes. Better get used to it.

I remember John's words when we saw the first flashes of police cars outside our flat, the heavy rain pelting the half-empty streets distorting the flashing neon. John told me that he feared I would never be able to survive it, survive prison, because I would get bored beyond any measure of reason and probably lose it altogether. I think I patted his shoulder.

"They will hurt you, and I can't stop them", John told me that night. It upset me to think that he considered this to be his duty.

I have never worried about protecting myself. My martial arts training, my planning skills and my IQ have always served me well in that respect. Unfortunately these things offer very little help against tedium.

It's John's fears I worry about, mostly. Because unless he decides to give it all up, let all remains of me drift away from his life like a dead leaf on the waves, he will worry about me until the end of either of our days.

For that, I hate myself.

Would we have been spared this, if I had stopped of my own accord, quit cold turkey? How many cigarettes are enough for a smoker? How many shots are enough for a heroinist?

The question is irrelevant. It is what it is. It never stops and not even too much will ever be enough.

John is in the Palace, and as days pass between the arrest and the trial, I am surprised to find myself visiting those rooms more often than the ones that brought me into this cell. I never imagined a life such as the one I had with him. The exact words with which I would describe the nature of our acquaintance are irrelevant, but I do relish the thought that I had a... someone to come home to.

The darkness in me always lent an edge to our relationship, although John probably never consciously made note of it. Living with him, it was increasingly difficult to arrange my proclivities. The need to keep the lenght of my absences to a minimum in order to keep John from wondering where I was lead to shoddy, quick abductions too close to home. It's tough to hide a corpse in London nowadays.

Even if everything had gone according to plan in West Ealing, would I have been able to continue indefinitely? Unlikely. Those who never get caught have usually managed to stop. Or perhaps they've died or become disabled. I doubt I'd have been able to stop. Or perhaps 'able' is not the word. I would not have wanted to stop. John asked me to, and I would have tried my damnedest to make good on that promise, but I think I would have failed. And from that failure would have bloomed the complete destruction of John's life.

John flinches when I sometimes refer to others like me as 'us'. I am usually not sensitive about semantics, but it's something about the word 'serial killer' makes people distraught even though as a word it is both neutral and accurately descriptive. I have realized I dislike the term nowadays as well.

Maybe it's the expression on John's face when he hears it that repulses me.

'People like you always get caught'. It's not easy being us, John. Nobody chooses this, that's for sure. They can argue about good and evil, compulsion and free will, but nobody chooses this.

The day that I stand before a jury at the Inner London Crown Court and plead guilty to the unlawful killing of 38 reasonable persons in being under the Queen's peace with malice aforethought expressed, is the day John's cane makes a comeback.

I am categorized into class A, which signifies a highly dangerous individual to the public. Based on nothing but conjecture, I am classified as an Exceptional Flight risk. Since I am not an imbecile, I harbor no misconceptions about evading recapture if I even managed to escape - I am certain I would succeed in the escape itself, as Her Majesty's Custody system was created and is maintained by idiots, but the following manhunt would assuredly result in me being swiftly returned right where I started from.

HM Prison Woodhill in Milton Keynes, that is. My home for the remainder of my days. It's a pleasant one-hour train ride from London. I informed John of this on the phone. He failed to understand the relevance of the pleasantness.

I will never be eligible to a parole hearing. I have a single cell in the "Closed Supervision Centre", which reserved for those who evoke the greatest horror in the minds of the Great British Public. I am to stay in my cell twenty three hours a day. One hour a day is spent in the courtyard - a bleak, grassless patch of dirt on the prison grounds. At least the sky is visible through the grating in the ceiling. Are they expecting me to try to escape by sprouting a pair of wings?

Being assigned into one of these Closed Supervision Centres means that I am too dangerous to be allowed to roam freely among the general prison populace of murderers, rapists and embezzlers. I should be proud of this accomplishment, really. I am spared from experiencing first-hand the general idiocy of the average British criminal.

Despite my classification, they still let me see John in the general visitors' area. We're even allowed to sit across the same small table. I suspect my brother may have had an influence in this.

After the novelty of prison wears out, tedium sets in. After tedium, claustrophobia. I dream of waking up in my own bed, hearing John's footsteps in the upstairs bedroom, the whistle of the tea kettle, sunlight streaming through the worn velvet curtains of 221B Baker Street.

Waking up without access to natural light feels akin to being demented - for a moment I have no idea where I am and cannot gauge the time of the day from my surroundings. Every sensation is a nuisance: the scratchy woollen blanket that does little to blunt the bone-chilling cold from the draft through the barred door. The incessant whirring of the air conditioning. The echoes of metal doors opening and closing. The shock doesn't milden despite how many times I am ripped from my dreams back into my actual existence.

At least I have access to some my own clothes now. Not that I have much use for my suits or dress shoes anymore. I have no one and nothing to dress up for.

I get very few visitors. Mycroft doesn't show up. It would not bode well for his political career to associate with a serial murderer. He's been quite adept at keeping the fact of us being siblings out of the press. Extortion and calling on old favours, undoubtedly. The parental unit visits before major holidays, utilizing cars with black-tinted windows. I think Mycroft is rubbing off on them. We barely speak a word. It's a ritual.

Lestrade never appears. Molly visits once and even I get uncomfortable watching her try to come up with something to say. Even Molly Hooper in her naivete realizes that any attempt to chitchat or cheer me up will appear grotesque.

Mrs Hudson visits once. She cries and asks whatever you would assume she would ask. For a woman whose late husband was a monster whose criminal empire she worked as an office clerk for, she is surprisingly and tediously judgmental. 'How could you, Sherlock!'

How could I indeed.

Easily, it turns out. Effortlessly.

I shouldn't have. I know that. I do.

A substantial number of my visitors are psychiatrists, journalists and social sciences researchers. Or that's what their visitor forms say. What they actually are is groupies. They want to dip their toes into the darkness and then withdraw them unscatched, untainted, having experienced the thrill of stewing in a chair opposite a real live psychopath. I raise the hairs in the back of their necks by sharing tales of my victims. That's what they're here for so I indulge out of the goodness of my heart. They hem and haw and go pale and try to change the suspect. Fucking hypocrites.

Even though I spend my days segregated from the rest of the prison population, paranoia sets in. I fear getting stabbed at night. I chalk it up to lack of constructive stimulation to my brain. In the dead of night, I can imagine the cells of my grey matter dying, being snuffed out like dwarf stars in the empty universe, synapses shutting down forever for lack of proper use.

They're dying. I'm dying. We all are.

One Thursday it all becomes a bit too much. Or is it Sunday? Or Friday? I can't tell anymore. We're not allowed calendars for some arbitrary reason. They probably think I would somehow manage to kill myself with the staples. It is actually possible, but I don't tell this to anyone.

I suddenly can't bear the idea of going to sleep and waking up to experience the exact same things as I did today. White walls, cage like a hamster's.

After realizing I can do anything I want within the confines of this cell since there's nothing more that they can do to me - I scream. The echo it gives out is glorious. Some of my neighbours disapprove, 'Shut that goddamned psycho up' - and I relish the feeling of riling them up even further with my theatrical wailing. At least it's releasing some of the pent-up energy.

After my throat gets hoarse and my vocal chords decide to quit, my assigned personal officer finally shows up. I don't bother him much. His deep appreciation of my physical properties and his blatantly obvious desire to manipulate me into letting him cop a feel is unnerving.

In my approaching desperation I decide to use his preferences to my advantage. All it takes is a few batted eyelids and some veiled promises to get him to handcuff me, take me to an adjoining wing, and let me use my phone card in one of the payphones. I make a mental note to knee him in the groin later just as a precaution.

It's the middle of the night and the wing is empty. The officer disappears somewhere, perhaps to get a cup of coffee. It's not like I can get anywhere with all the hallway doors locked.

My hands shaking more than I'd like to admit, I dial a familiar number. I feel a pang of guilt when I realize the lateness of the hour, but this is an emergency.

John answers after a few rings with a sleepy voice. It's not possible for him to recognize this number. No one has ever called him from it.

"Yeah?" he says and my whole being lets go of the breath I didn't even know I was holding.

I close my eyes and lean the back of my head on the coarse concrete of the wall next to the phone.

"Hello?" John asks again, somewhat annoyed. I realize I've failed to identify myself. He probably gets a lot of prank calls nowadays.

"It's me." Even a sleepy John Watson will surely be able to deduce something from that.

He clears his throat. "Sherlock?"

I can practically hear him frowning. "Is everything alright?" he inquires.

Why must he ask such idiotic questions? "Yes."

"You usually don't call me in the middle of the night. Are you sure nothing's going on?"

They don't let you call me in the middle of the night, is what he is in all likelihood actually thinking.

"Yes. No. Not sure."

"You've not escaped, have you?" He doesn't sound very concerned. I realize that such a turn of events wouldn't probably surprise him all that much.

"No, I have not. I just-"

Wanted to hear your voice because you were right, the boredom is going to kill me and I haven't figured out how to kill myself in a cell as empty as mine because they even took away the staples?

Needed to talk to someone who actually cares whether I'm alive or dead?

I can hear him sitting up in bed. "It's okay," he says quietly.

"Tell me- About your day," I blurt out and realize I've betrayed my hand here. Normally I'd never ask him such a banal thing.

He knows this but doesn't call me on my bullshit. What did I do to deserve him? Surely not what landed me here.

He describes his workday at the clinic. What he had for lunch. How his former classmate from medical school is having a baby. I listen and nod and make small sounds of general acceptance and appreciation.

It is strangely reassuring that his life, his existence contains these abhorrently normal, banal, ridiculous things and that he seems to find comfort in them.

I find comfort in the fact that he still has such a life, that I haven't ruined it all for him.

I listen to the familiar lilt of his voice and close my eyes, letting myself imagine for a fraction of a second that I'm back in our sitting room, John sitting in his chair. I would be prattling a monologue about a case and John would turn on the television and throw in idle observations about my current state of mind. He would practically force-feed me biscuits to keep me from passing out in my usual 'there's a case on' -mania.

Since I always thought I could feel a strange bittersweet sense of the end looming somewhere I cherished those moments at home with him. I should have sent him packing when it came clear that I couldn't curb my desires while living with him.

To me, John's company was a bit like killing - I just couldn't help myself and I should have known better.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock, but I'm practically falling asleep sitting up," John apologizes. I don't know what he has been talking about for the fast five minutes. I was listening to him, not the idiotic things he was prattling on about.

"It's fine," I say quietly, letting my gaze wander up the ceiling, where I see a large, unclean skylight with bars cutting the view through it into tiny squares. It's raining.

I will forget what it's like to walk outside in the rain. I will forget everything. I need John to be there to remind me.

"I'll forget being me," I say without thinking. John doesn't reply but I can hear his suddenly dysrhytmic breathing at the other end of the line. I think I've somehow upset him.

I put down the receiver without saying goodbye.

Two days after the phone call, I am summoned to the Head Warden's office. Thanks to the influence of my brother and John's not-that-polite campaign of reminding the Home Office of official prison policy concerning personal items, I am reunited with my violin.


	18. Forever

**PART SIX: SHERLOCK**

 **Chapter 18: Forever**

I try to explain it all to John once. Try to get him to understand why I did what I did.

We're all made of stuff from the stars. We're all on a doomed chunk of rock hurtling towards nothingness, a rock in a sea of other rocks circling other stars.

There are six billion people on this planet - all born with an expiration date.

Moral is relative. Murder and mercy are separated only by a changing code of ethics defined by fallible humans.

"Have they put you on something?" John asks, clearly trying to evaluate my pupil size.

I stop trying.

Memories of John, of us, become a sort of a rosary. When my mind is too idle and begins gnawing at its own tail, I go through the most important ones in my head as though I'm flipping through a photo album.

They're still hurting John because of me. One day, at work, a nurse from an adjoining ward who didn't know who he was, stopped him as they walked past one another in the hallway because she was collecting signatures for a petition to reinstate the death penalty in this country. A petition that was started because of me.

What options did John have in that situation? Don't sign it and tell her about me, about us? Sign it and keep quiet? I would have understood if he had.

He would never wish me dead, but I would certainly wish for others to stop punishing him in these strange and unexpected ways for what I've done.

John has had offers for substantial amounts of money for my even most trivial belongings. Groupies are willing to pay thousands of pounts for even just a ballpoint pen. John refuses to sell anything to these people.

"I don't care if they're offering eleven thousand pounds for your scarf. I'm not selling it so that some dimwit can have a wank on it," he told me.

A year after my sentencing there's a headline in the Mirror, 'The ex-boyfriend of The Dissector tells all!'. How delightful.

Victor Trevor, my university on-off shag had decided to cash in. In the piece he claims to be friends with me and my alleged current beau, a doctor.

He even claims that I had planned on making him one of my victims. That he was my type - since I apparently killed young, strong men just because I wanted to show everyone I could.

That is only part of the truth. Mostly I chose them because they were strong enough to survive through the initial muscle relaxant dose.

I'd have never killed Victor. I'm not that stupid.

John never mentions the article. I'm grateful for that.

"You could appeal," John suggests one afternoon during visiting.

I scoff quietly. I notice a young, scruffy couple sitting by a nearby table pass a package between themselves. None of the guards notice. Drugs, most likely.

Even though I admit the longing still exists, I'm not going to start using in prison. If a supply route got cut off, going through withdrawal in these circumstances would be both painful and dehumanizing. I'll not stoop that low.

I had adamantly refused to lean on an insanity defence. Being declared mentally incompetent would have been my only chance to avoid a lifer's prison sentence, a 'whole life tariff' as they call it. Still, I would rather be here with my wits intact, than to be locked up in some ward for the criminally insane, with antipsychotics and mood stabilizers forced on me by the bucketful.

They didn't let me take the stand at my own trial. After talking to John my barrister had decided that I would sink my case even further because apparently nobody likes me.

They didn't like me any better before all this came to light.

I killed 38 people. How could a few words spoken at court possibly make it worse?

"Appeal for what? A reduction of my sentence from 230 years to 190?" I ask John, who doesn't reply.

I move my hands forward so that I can cover his left hand with my right one. He flinches but does not withdraw.

"John. You're allowed to think I belong here."

His eyes rove around the large room. Paint is peeling off the ceiling. The high windows have thick bars. The only piece of nature that's visible is some patchy, brown grass in the distance. The chairs are uncomfortable and made out of ugly orange plastic.

Today is rare because none of the other visitors are stealing glances at us. It appears that my infamy rivals even that of Steve Wright, Ian Brady and Dennis Nilsen. The Suffolk Strangler, The Moors Murderer, The Kindly Killer.

Here's the Baker Street Dissector, the one with the most victims in the British history of homicide.

"Nobody belongs here," John says with a modicum of determination.

Not even me?

"I can't do this anymore," John says, "Not anymore," as though repetition somehow lessens the impact.

"Of course not," I say and attempt an encouraging smile. Judging by my usual lack of success in emulating normality, it probably comes across as something else entirely.

"I need to find something else, build another kind of life, you know," John says, not looking at me.

"Of course you do," I say, and wring my hands under the table. They still insist on handcuffing me during visiting. Other prisoners don't get to enjoy such a privilege. I should feel honoured, notorious. Mostly I just feel inconvenienced.

"Do you think I'm a bit like those women who want convicts as pen pals?" he asks, leaning back in his chair and sounding bored.

I don't answer. I recognize self-pity when I see it. I'm not immune to it myself.

"I loved you. I think I did," John suddenly says and smiles a small, sad smile. Before I can process any of it he grabs his now empty plastic bag of souvenirs from the outside world that he always brings me - chocolate and soda - and stands up. He crumples the white plastic bag into a ball and stuffs it into his trouser pocket.

Then he walks out without a word.

I say "Bye, John" to him in a voice that doesn't really sound like me.

Two nights after that, I dream of the one I killed three days after my thirtieth birthday. Blond hair, beautiful skin, tight jeans. More than willing to go home with me. I cut out his heart and held it in my hands for a long time.

In my dream, John was there, watching. In my dream, I stopped before the killing blow and let the man go. He turned into a bird.

I don't know what any of it means.

All I know is that when there's visiting hours again the next Wednesday, John comes back.

And he comes back the Wednesday after that.

And all my remaining Wednesdays.

Because his heart is the only one I can hold now.

 **\- The End -**

As always, I would be very very thrilled to hear your thoughts now that we've reached the end.

Some thankyous:

\- M, the co-founder of our two-woman Porcupine-Lickers-Anonymous peer support group.

\- Mr B: badger-wrangler extraordinaire and a man of endless patience when it comes to listening me whining about the agony of writing things.

\- JK, who did not disown me despite discovering the true depths of my creepiness.

\- The Husband Unit, who did not divorce me despite discovering the true depths of my creepiness.

\- All my regular commenters - you know who you are! I hereby award you the official title of Baillier Street Irregulars X-)


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